Highland police officers attend an incident involving mental health issues every two to three hours, the north’s top police officer has revealed.
Highlands and Islands divisional commander George MacDonald called for partner agencies to become more available after hours to support officers dealing with incidents 24/7.
He said: “Mental health is one of the biggest challenges we’re facing on a daily basis.
“We do regular number crunching which shows that on an average day my officers are dealing with vulnerability linked to mental health every two to three hours.
“That’s the reality. Our partners in support services are also well aware of it.”
Mr MacDonald said his officers are available round the clock and therefore find themselves hands-on attending incidents through the night, when health and local authorities were not always available.
He said: “I want services to be available more widely. Police are there 24/7, others aren’t.
“I appreciate the entire public sector is going through significant challenges and re-design, but this shouldn’t mean less services, it should mean a better service.”
Mr MacDonald said officers were receiving more training to deal with a role that had changed significantly over the past decade.
He said: “Our staff are dealing with far more issues of vulnerability, in terms of mental health, child protection, domestic scenarios.
“We are doing our best to give them the skills to deal with different types of vulnerability but fundamentally police officers aren’t mental health experts, there are other people better placed to make an appropriate assessment of people’s needs.
“We’re doing our best in relation to the appropriate training of staff and giving them the skills, but it’s not lost on me that a lot of these situations are different from want officers were dealing with not that many years ago.”
Highland Council says it provides a limited social work service out of normal office hours to help with urgent social problems through its social work out of hours team.
A spokesman for NHS Highland said: “We work closely with Police Scotland and other multi-agency partners in Highland to provide person-centred support for people with mental health concerns and their families.”
