Commissioners plan new service for children in mental health crisis

Three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) covering Devon have announced they will jointly commission a new dedicated service to assess the mental health needs of children and young people aged 17 and under who are detained by police under the Mental Health Act.

The announcement came as CYP Now revealed last week figures from Devon and Cornwall Police that showed in the 12 months up to the end of November 2014, 32 children aged 17 and under were held at custody centres across the police force area using section 136 of the act.

In the previous 12 months, 29 children aged 17 and under were held at custody centres using a section 136 order, a part of the act used by the police to take someone to a "place of safety" if they are in a public place and deemed in need of care.

The three CCGs – Northern, Eastern and Western Devon CCG, South Devon CCG and Torbay CCG – said in a statement: “We have committed to commission a local place of safety to provide a dedicated facility in which children and young people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act can have an assessment of their mental health needs and have the professional support they need in an appropriate environment.
 
“We are currently working with a local provider to enable this to come into operation as soon as possible.”

Recent government guidance says cells should never be used for children as places of safety, but police are sometimes forced to do so until an in-patient bed becomes available at a local hospital.

Last month, Devon and Cornwall Police's assistant chief constable Paul Netherton used Twitter to highlight the case of a 16-year-old who had been looked after in custody because there were no NHS beds available. While in January, an investigation by the Care Quality Commission found 41 instances in the South West region in the year up to March 2013 where police cells were used as places of safety for children because of a shortage of in-patient beds in adolescent-only wards in the region’s hospitals.

In a separate announcement, Plymouth City Council and Northern, Eastern and Western CCG have been awarded £75,000 to improve the commissioning of mental health services for children and young people locally.