Beds not cells for mentally ill

5.30.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 15th Jun 2009

Local MPs Paul Burstow and Tom Brake used a meeting yesterday to raise their concerns that a decision by the local NHS Mental Health services had increased the risk to the lives of people with severe mental health problems.

By abandoning plans to open a specialist mental health service at Sutton hospital the borough's police were left picking up the pieces and forced to ferry people at risk of self-harm or harming others in the back of police vans.

Mr Burstow met with representatives from the local Mental Health Trust and police to discuss the way in which a shortage of suitable specialist facilities led to patients being transported between Tolworth, Tooting (Springfield hospital) and Sutton in some cases with no place available ending up in a cell at Sutton police station.

Paul Burstow MP said:

'Treating people suffering from mentally illness like criminals is unacceptable. But a failure by the Mental Health services to think through the consequences of their decision to axe the opening of a specialist facility at Sutton hospital has simple transferred the risk to the Police!

'To understand what this experience is like I've sat in the back of one of these vans. Even with the doors open it felt claustrophobic, let alone if I was seriously ill and distressed.

'The NHS often talks about the patient experience and the patient journey. When it comes to mental health it seems that the journey only begins once the police find a suitable place to take them. If this continues there could be a serious incident either in a van or in custody. People need beds not cells.

'The Mental Health service will say that the responsibility lies with the London Ambulance Service to transport people with severe mental health problems. This is just living in the real world. In the end it leaves the Police in the unenviable position of weighing the risk of acting or doing nothing.'