Police in England must keep answering mental health calls, charity urges

Ministers asked to pause scheme that allows police to step back from responding to callouts or risk further deaths

Ministers should order police forces in England to keep attending mental health calls until more funding is in place for the NHS to plug the gap or risk further deaths, a charity is urging.

Rethink Mental Illness has written to the home and health secretaries asking them to immediately pause the right-care-right-person scheme, which allows police forces to step back from responding to mental health callouts, after “a series of tragic deaths” associated with the change.