So who is in charge?!
Here’s what’s wrong with mental health care in the UK << he modestly claimed! No one is in charge of it – at all. It’s not a system – it’s a coincidence. You might want to pop the kettle on before you tackle this one! You’ve only got to follow the @Twitter feeds of a few MH trust Chief […]
Male mental health
There are various things going on at the moment that got me thinking about male mental health. Here are a range of different issues that have hit my radar over the last few years: 1. We know that around 75% of suicides are men – we also know that men are less likely to seek help when […]
My reaction to Adebowale
I thought myself very privileged to have been on the list of people to receive an embargoed copy of the Adebowale Report on Friday morning, two hours before the world saw it. Although I was due to be at work on an EARLY shift, I had made mental arrangements to prioritise reading it amidst my various duties, […]
Police mental health
I am aware that several forces are reviewing, revising or writing afresh their internal policies on mental ill-health for staff. Policies about a force’s duty of care towards their police officers and employees. There are various reasons why this is very, very necessary and arguably overdue. Like any organisation, the police service will have staff […]
Debating police powers
Recent debate has surfaced about police powers in private premises to deal with mental health incidents. Readers of the blog already know that the police, on their own, have no such powers under the Mental Health Act 1983. The impact of this is that where officers attend a private house, unless there has been a criminal offence […]
Elephants in the room
I predict that in a decade or more, we will still know Nicola’s Edgington’s name. I really fear, as with many of these cases, that the public will have forgotten Sally Hodkin’s name and that it will be her family who keep her memory alive, forever consumed with regret that it was their wife, their mother […]
Training day
On 17th February this year, the Observer published an article in the wake of the failed “Commissioner v ZH” appeal in which it was reported that “Hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money used by the commissioner to fight this case [could have] been used to train police officers to humanely treat people with disabilities. The Association […]
Twenty percent
How much of policing is connected to mental health issues? - obviously you could play all day with the definitions that would have to apply to any proper analysis of that question – what do you mean by “connected”; what do you mean by “mental health issues”. And yet the question remains important even if […]
Prison transfers
We’ve discussed the issue of ‘diversion’ (whatever that means) on this blog many times. It is often conceived as being something that happens before, at or just after the point of arrest and before people enter the justice system proper by facing criminal charges. In reality, ‘diversion’ can occur at four different stages; each representing […]
Lord Adebowale’s Independent Commission
Today, the Independent Commission on Policing and Mental Health established by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has launched a website. The Commission, chaired by Lord Adebowale and involving ACPO Lead on Mental Health, Chief Constable Simon Cole, will ultimately publish their report in March 2013 on this website so it is worth book-marking, but they have also established a survey that seeks the […]
Autonomy, risk and the politics of control
The award-winning Mental Health Cop considers whether mental health legislation might not be about protecting people but controlling them.