Police need training to section vulnerable people

Restraining people with mental health problems is a delicate task – tactics used against criminals are not appropriate
Police at St Paul's Cathedral
Police restraint tactics designed for criminals can be used on mental health patients. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

The case of Peter Russell, a 58-year-old man with Alzheimer's, being repeatedly tasered by police officers as he resisted being taken into hospital under section, was horrifying. It's hard to imagine how it would feel looking on as a loved one was acted against in that way, but beyond the shock, it is always worth asking: what could be done instead? Why, in 2012, is our treatment of people with severe mental health or cognitive difficulties still so entwined with the apparatus of policing? The answer, from the point of view of mental health services at least, seems simply to be "it's a dirty job and someone else is going to do it". But this doesn't go far enough.

Sectioning, or taking away someone's right to freedom so he or she can be taken for treatment or assessment, is one of the most challenging areas in mental health. To be physically restrained at a time of great personal disorder, desperation or distress is never going to be a good experience, and as such it requires a sensitive and thoughtful approach. .

In Russell's case, because of his dementia, it is difficult for him to give a detailed account of the ordeal. But "sectioning" is used across the spectrum of mental illness and cognitive impairment. So what do those who have been on the receiving end think? I spoke to a 36-year-old woman with dissociative identity disorder about her experience of the police taking her to a place of safety so that she could be assessed under the Mental Health Act:

"I had gone 'missing' so there had been a six-hour manhunt by the local force. There were around five officers present the entire time and I was fortunate that my community psychiatric nurse (CPN) was also there. I was confused, scared and surrounded by what I perceived to be threatening people. It was never explained to me what was happening, why the police were there and what their role was.
"I was taken out to a police van by five officers and locked in. I was taken to the local acute ward by two officers who then had to wait with me until the ward took over my 'care' again. This took hours. The police made it clear they were unhappy at having to babysit me. I don't think it's too much to ask that should police involvement be necessary to prevent us endangering ourselves or others, that some sort of mental health professional be present [as well]."

As ever, some of this comes down to resources. Police are not the only people who can legally carry out restraint in cases where someone is being sectioned involuntarily, but are often the professionals on the scene. Section 136 of the Mental Health Act allows a police officer to hold someone for up to 72 hours until they are assessed by a relevant professional, meaning mental health care experts do not need to be present while an individual is detained by the police. Speaking to blogger Mental Health Cop, a police inspector himself, about the general role of police in cases like this, he told me:

"The officers were under a legal duty to get [the person] safely admitted. It's a common problem across the UK that community-based nurses and staff don't appear to have the training or they aren't deployable. I have a strong view, and I know many cops share it, that if the NHS and mental health professionals want to be in the coercion business, and especially if they object to police safety and restraint tactics – let's remember, they were designed for burglars, rapists and drunks – then they should train and deploy their staff to do therapeutically appropriate restraint."

Being sectioned is often a highly unpleasant and distressing experience. If cases like Russell's make us feel uncomfortable, but we accept that to get people treatment we sometimes have to move them there against their will, we have to think about how we can do it differently, and, in the current climate, how we find the money.

We need to look beyond individual cases and ask whether, as a society, we are comfortable with the interaction between law enforcement officers and vulnerable people. Police involvement is not anyone's solution of choice in cases like this, but if police officers do remain the people most regularly involved in such cases, then they must have appropriate training and support that helps them to differentiate people who are unwell from people with criminal intentions.