A network of walk-in centres for patients experiencing mental distress, is being set up to reduce pressure in overcrowded Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments.
Both GPs and the police can make referrals to these walk-in centres, which will be staffed by specialist doctors and nurses providing 24/7 support.
Mental health crisis
Ten NHS trusts have opened dedicated units for mental health emergencies, and the scheme is expected to be expanded under Labour’s 10-year NHS plan being published this summer.
Sir James Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, told The Guardian: “Crowded A&Es are not designed to treat people in mental health crises. We need to do better.”
Mackey described the new approach as a “pioneering new model designed to provide the right support in the right setting.”
Ensuring patients stay out of hospital and speeding up access to appropriate care are the aims of the new centres.
Thousands of people in mental health crises are enduring waits of up to three days in A&E before they get a hospital bed.
Evidence secured by The Guardian using freedom of information requests shows 5,260 people a year in mental health crises wait more than 12 hours for a hospital bed after admission – up from less than 1,000 in 2019.
Scandal in plain sight
The Royal College of Nursing has described the situation in A&E as a “scandal in plain sight.”
At one hospital some patients were so distressed by the delay they tried to kill themselves. Nurses and fire brigade had to follow patients out of the hospital building to stop them.
Some A&E departments have become so busy that security guards are ending up looking after mental health patients.
One director of nursing at a London trust described their A&E as “close to torture” for those in mental distress.
