Mental Health Clinical Advice Line (s.136 Hub Programme)
The new Mental Health Clinical Advice Line (MHCAL) was launched on the 30 October 2023. The new service aims to provide a dedicated phone service for officers from all three of London’s police forces, to support them in their management of patients who have either been detained/at risk of detention under section 136 of the Mental Health Act.
The objective is to ensure that every individual gets prompt, specialist evaluation and care, thereby reducing the demand and strain on A&E departments; and improve outcomes for patients, particularly those Black and Minority Ethnic individuals who are disproportionately detained under the act.
Since the launch of the MHCAL, operational staff have actively sought feedback from colleagues. Whilst the feedback has been predominately positive, there has been a recurring theme regarding clarification on cases where the police bring a patient on a s136 to ED.
The hub have taken the feedback on board and the attached documents clarifies the processes that should be followed by Acute and Liaison Psychiatric team colleagues in ED when dealing with patients placed on a s136 of the MHA.
As a reminder:
- The S136 Mental Health Clinical Advice Line is a pilot service.
- The ED is only advised as a s136 destination where there is no HBPOS capacity available, or a medical assessment is required.
- Selection of the destination ED is by LAS, and not by the S136 advice service.
- The s136 Mental Health Clinical Advice Line is not intended to find step-down or other HBPOS capacity for any person initially referred to the ED. For any such cases your pre-pilot, local ED to HBPOS processes, transport arrangements, roles and responsibilities etc. should continue to be followed.
Downloads
Place of safety protocol flowchart (print version)
Place of safety protocol flowchart (detailed)