When someone’s having a mental health crisis, what should they do? Who do they call? Increasingly it’s the police and a Newsnight investigation reveals there’s been a massive rise in mental health call-outs by people who’ve rung the police across the UK.
In Merseyside, mental-health related incidents have gone up 313% in 5 years.
Some police chiefs think it’s down to lack of mental health services in the community and officers increasingly being seen as the first resort for people in a crisis.
Newsnight’s Sima Kotecha goes out with Merseyside Police and a mental health nurse to attend to a call. This report contains suicidal references.
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