Giles Fraser’s article about how the police have become the social service of last resort – and in particular a substitute mental healthcare service – would be laughable if it wasn’t true (Loose canon, 25 July).
Reductions in the provision of care for vulnerable people with mental health problems means that police are now called on to deal with incidents involving people having mental health problems that are only peripheral to crime and have no connections with organised crime or terrorism, but are usually public order or personal behavioural problems.
Few police officers are adequately trained to deal with serious mental health issues while the social and healthcare workers who do have this training are being laid off as NHS mental healthcare services and local authority social services departments struggle with reduced budgets and lack of political support.
If you suffer abuse at home, an attack in public or “just” have your purse or wallet pick-pocketed, do not be surprised if it takes several hours for a PC to respond even in the case of a grade one 999 call. For a less immediate problem you may have to wait days or weeks for a PC or even a PCSO to turn up to take your statement. It is likely that all available officers are dealing with low-level but highly visible public order issues or are about to spend the whole of their shift dealing with a vulnerable person who has been let down by the mental health services.
Unless the government reverses its approach to funding the police – as well as social and mental health services – don’t expect to see a police officer any time soon. Even when you need one.
Nick O’Shea
Surrey police and crime commissioner candidate in 2012
• Giles Fraser notes that the police and the church pick up the pieces when George Osborne’s austerity cuts leave gaps in provision for people with issues and disadvantages. He misses out the last truly mass institution in British society, the trade unions, that have for some time been fulfilling functions in this area. As a trade union officer my focus is of course on workplace matters but inevitably personal and social concerns that are not picked up elsewhere also present themselves, and they do so ever more frequently. Often one can only listen and advise where help might be available. Sometimes it is possible to collectivise a problem and campaign to get it resolved. Whatever the current disciples of Margaret Thatcher may think about society, it exists in the form of real people struggling to get by in a market society.
Keith Flett
Secretary, Haringey Trades Union Council
