Mentally-ill teenagers no longer to be held in cells

[Northerner]

Teenagers experiencing mental health problems will no longer be detained in police cells as a "place of safety".

Home Secretary Theresa May will announce later an overhaul of mental health laws in England and Wales.

The government review is also set to recommend adults should only be kept in a police cell as a place of safety in exceptional circumstances.

It comes after a 16-year-old girl was kept in police cells for two days last month because of a lack of care beds.

Her situation, in Torquay, came to public attention when Paul Netherton, assistant chief constable at Devon and Cornwall Police, tweeted his concerns. She was eventually found a bed on an adult psychiatric ward.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30520962

Says absolutely nothing about where the alternative will come from?

 

[KookyCat]

Shame on all of us is all I can say. Mental health problems should be dealt with by medical professionals at all times. This is an area that I am intensely passionate about given that my cousin was held for his own safety in a police cell twice before being taken to a secure unit where he killed himself. I don't know whether that could have been avoided but I am sure he would have had a better chance to get through it if the infrastructure for mental health care hadn't been decimated by successive governments who continue to fail those with specialist needs. I do hope this move is the start of a significant change and we see the mental health of the public as part of the agenda politically instead of leaving it to charities and voluntary schemes who can't possibly cope.