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The Home Office has published early evaluation findings from the roll out of the Right Care Right Person in England and finds that it is limited by the health and social care system’s capacity to absorb demand previously dealt with by policing and a lack of clarity about responsibilities and process between agencies.
The findings will come as no surprise as Lord Darzi, in his independent report for the new Labour government, said that the NHS is in “critical condition.” He said that over 300,000 people are waiting more than a year for first contact with mental health services and 109,000 of those were for children and young people under the age of 18.
Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) is designed to ensure that people of all ages, who have health and/or social care needs, are responded to by the right person, with the right skills, training and experience to best meet their needs. Originally developed in Humberside, the approach has been rolled out nationally and the detail set out in a Partnership Agreement with health.
“The main barrier to RCRP implementation was identified as capacity and resourcing limitations within health and social care for responding to incidents that had been dealt with by the police before the introduction of RCRP.”
The joint evaluation between Home Office and the Department for Health and Social Care used a sample of police forces, integrated care boards and local authorities across England, drawing on qualitative data and interviews between autumn 2023 and spring 2024.
The researchers identified good practice in communication and collaboration between police, local authority and health partners, observing that strong relationships helped to create “a supportive experience when implementing RCRP.”
“A key risk identified by Integrated Care Board, local authorities and the police was potential gaps in services. These gaps could result from a lack of clarity about who should respond to certain calls or inconsistent decisions being made.
“Decision making can be difficult for control room staff, incidents are often not clear cut, and decisions are based on information staff are provided with, which can be incomplete.”
Other concerns in this report include the potential for the public to perceive that the police was not dealing with mental health calls and for the ambulance service to respond to calls that do not relate to a health concern. In turn, that could have an impact on ambulance staff safety as they have “neither the same training in patient restraint techniques, nor the same power to detain them, as the police.”
The fire and rescue service was included in the research and along with police they shared concerns “about calls being made by the ambulance service that appeared to adapt the information being provided to ensure their response and attendance at an incident.
While this is a small sample, the police reported a “perceived reduction” in demand for mental health calls and conversely, the health care partners reported that they “expect more demand on services, especially for mental health crisis teams and lines, ambulance services, and urgent and emergency care.” They expressed concerns about this having a detrimental impact on other demand for their services.
The evaluation concludes that “early data shows that RCRP has led to a reduction of police time spent on RCRP related incidents.” It provides a list of good practice to be shared with all providers including partnership working, good communication, creation of clear protocols and a phased implementation approach.
Read the full evaluation report, Right Care, Right Person, published by the Home Office on 3 December 2024.
