Currently, the Metropolitan Police Service is increasingly involved in responding to mental health crises and other health-related issues diverting officers from their core role of preventing and solving crime, supporting victims and bringing offenders to justice. This is while patients who need medical help are attended to by officers instead of expert healthcare professionals.
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In London, police officers spend an average of 14.2 hours in hospital with patients when they are sectioned under the Mental Health Act while they wait for a medical professional to take over care. In March 2023 alone, officers spent 10,000 hours working on sectioning patients and in 2021/22, the Met received more than 78,000 mental health-related calls and more than 204,000 concerns for welfare calls.
