‘Shocking’ A&E with ‘police everywhere you look’ must be solved, says director

A former national director has expressed her shock at visiting an accident and emergency department struggling with record numbers of mental health patients accompanied by police officers, and warned the issue needs an “absolute solution” from the area’s mental health trusts.

Kathy McLean, a non-executive director at Barking, Havering, and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust, and previously NHS Improvement’s medical director, told a board meeting last week there were “police officers everywhere you looked” at the accident and emergency at King George Hospital in Ilford, which had just experienced its third consecutive record month for mental health referrals.

While she recognised nearby mental health trusts North East London Foundation Trust and East London FT were “working hard”, she added: “This is not our problem, it is their problem that we’ve now got, and it’s not right for [patients], nor is it right for other people attending the emergency departments.

“I’ve been to more emergency departments than most people in the country and I was shocked, everywhere you looked there was a police officer… This now needs an absolute solution. If this was ambulances sitting outside our ED, people would be saying, you’ve got to sort it.”

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Source: HSJ, 14 July 2023