The next time the Home Office publish statistics on the use of s136 and the locations to which people are removed after use of police powers under the MHA, we should learn that it’s down in to double figures –…

I made passing comment in the last post I wrote about crime recording rules and I’m assuming you’ve nothing better to do on a Sunday than read about statistical counting procedures put together for the purposes of not-really-understanding-crime at all…

I’m off to Manchester on Monday. The Care Quality Commission are pulling together an event to look at the widely ignored provisions contained within section 140 of the Mental Health Act 1983. Actually, it’s not so much ignored, as not…

For some while, it has been suggested that the police service need to define what they mean by an incident being ‘mental health related’. You know those claims you’ve heard may times about how X percent of police demand or…

We are hearing stories on social media at the moment, of patients who claim they were told to ‘call the police’ when they have contacted their community or crisis team for support as they recognise they are becoming unwell or…

It was being asked again last night, in the AMHP social media world as to whether Britain had run out of inpatient psychiatric beds. Obviously a difficult night to go out AMHPing, at least in some parts of the country.…

You’ll remember I’ve been banging on for a number of years now about the problem of people being in police custody for many hours or even for many days, waiting for Mental Health Act assessment, or more usually waiting for…

Norman Lamb MP wrote to his local police force recently, asking about those kinds of cases I’ve been banging on for years now: people being held in custody for hours and hours, if not days and days, following their arrest…