Mental Health Services: Disclosure of Information
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what he is taking to ensure effective intelligence sharing between mental health services and (a) the police and (b) other relevant services when a patient is deemed to pose a risk to the wider public.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
Mental health services work and engage with a range of services to manage patients identified as a potential risk. The nature of this engagement will vary depending on the nature and level of the risk. For example, this may be through formal processes such as multi-agency public protection arrangements.
In matters of national security, health services work with Counter Terrorism policing and the wider security sector to ensure that information is shared appropriately, to provide a complete picture of any risk, and to provide the right interventions and care for patients.
Local level arrangements will also be in place, as police forces are operationally independent. Whilst the roll out of the Right Care, Right Person approach has reduced the involvement of police in mental health incidents, they will continue to engage where there is a serious risk of harm, and local level arrangements have been put in place to support safe roll out between police, and health and social care services.
We intend to use the Code of Practice following the Mental Health Bill to further underline good practice for how mental health services should work with other services, including the police, to keep people safe, particularly regarding consideration of discharge.
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