On the road with police responding to rising mental health callouts – BBC Newsnight

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.

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line: bbc.co.uk/actionline/

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