Mental Health, Multiple Needs and the Police
This is a report of the findings from our experimental ‘Link Worker’ scheme. We describe the ‘revolving doors’ group, examine and cost their service use and look at the effects of a Link Worker service. It concludes with the main issues and themes, showing how we plan to carry them forward.
Over two and a half years, this scheme tested a new way of engaging people with mental health and related needs. This group was not receiving the support they needed to cope in the community. Our work in the scheme focused on police stations at Bethnal Green, Islington and High Wycombe.
Our approach was rooted in investigative and developmental work carried out since 1993 when Revolving Doors Agency was set up in response to a report. This study looked at the relationship between mental health, homelessness and contact with the criminal justice system.
There was a growing perception that mentally ill people were ending up on the streets, getting in trouble with the police and spending time in prison. The study looked into this and made a series of recommendations. One of these was to set up a pilot to address some of the issues raised, and this scheme was created.
This report consists of two main sections. The first uses information collected from the Link Worker sites to describe the characteristics of a ‘revolving doors’ group of people. The second examines and costs service use by this group and looks at some of the effects of introducing a Link Worker service. Finally, we draw out the main issues and themes, and show how we plan to carry them forward. The data suggests strongly that the Link Worker scheme can have an impact on their client’s use of certain community services. We noted the following:
The Police have more contact with this group than social services. Our cost estimations suggest that the annual cost of this group’s arrests was greater than the annual costs to emergency, community health or social services.
Evidence of a fall in clients’ use of emergency services and temporary housing is coupled with more appropriate use of emergency services and better quality housing.
Evidence suggests that there would be decreased costs of crisis services and temporary housing in the longer term. These could offset the increase in costs in providing of appropriate services to health, social services and local authority housing. This is encouraging, suggesting that greater cost effectiveness for both clients and community services can be achieved.
