Debate contribution: PSNI: Pressure due to Health System Failings

Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on 1 December 2025.

MLA

Mrs Linda Dillon

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

1 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

PSNI: Pressure due to Health System Failings

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5269413

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the proposer of the motion. We will support the motion and the amendment. I begin by recognising the reality that faces the PSNI and, more importantly, the people who find themselves in deep distress or in crisis. Every day, police officers respond to more than 100 concern for safety calls, but only a tiny fraction of those situations involve any criminal activity. It is clear what that tells us: people who experience mental ill health, vulnerability or breakdowns in their well-being are not getting the response that they need from the health and social care system. The police are being forced to step into a space that was never meant to be theirs. That is neither fair nor sustainable, and it is certainly not fair on the person in crisis. Officers have told us time and again that they are being asked do work for which they are not trained or resourced and that, ultimately, cannot deliver the best outcome for individuals who need clinical and therapeutic support, not a policing intervention. This is not about criticising the PSNI — it is not about criticising the Health Minister and his Department either — which is doing the best that it can, but it is placed in impossible positions because of the failings elsewhere in the system. For Sinn Féin and me, the issue is fundamentally about outcomes for the person and ensuring that they receive the required care. When someone is in the midst of a mental health emergency or personal crisis, the question that we must ask is simple: who is the best person to help them? I disagree slightly with the previous contributor about the police being a health service. They absolutely cannot be that service, because they are not the right people. They are not able to help those people in crisis. The answer is simple: the best people to help are trained health and social care professionals, not the police. We need the right care to be delivered by the right person at the right time. I know that the Minister and his departmental officials have bought into that, but we need to accelerate it. I have said this in the Chamber before, and I will repeat it today, because it is the core of what needs to change. The Health Minister's Department has significant resources compared with the PSNI. Those resources need to be used to target the people who most need them. We need to find better pathways. It is about doing things differently. I accept that money is needed in every Department, but we need to do things differently. The gaps in mental health services, crisis response, community support and early intervention continue to grow. Police officers fill those gaps, often doing so late at night and alone in situations where they cannot provide what the person genuinely needs. That is unsustainable and unsafe, and it places enormous pressure on services and communities. We know that it is unsafe, because we see what happens when people do not get the right response. We saw what happened in the Cawdery case. In my area, I see people being repeatedly taken to A&E and ending up in prison because it is the only safe place to take them. That is not on. It cannot carry on in that way. The Right Care, Right Person model offers a clear and compassionate framework to address the issue. It is about ensuring that vulnerable people get expert assessment and support from those who are trained to give it, while freeing up our police to focus on keeping our communities safe. However, the model needs to be delivered with urgency. Alongside that, we need the full implementation of the mental health strategy and the 'Delivering Together' vision to build proper responsive community-based care that prevents crisis rather than just reacting to it. It is not about Departments passing responsibility from one to another; it is about a whole-system commitment to ensuring the right outcome for people who are struggling. People deserve dignity, safety and the right professional response. PSNI officers deserve to be able to focus on their core role, and our communities deserve a health system that is able to meet need rather than push it on to the police. I urge the Health Minister to take the lead on a cross-departmental effort to deliver the Right Care, Right Person approach. Our police cannot continue to be the service of last resort. Actually, it is not the last resort but the first resort: when somebody has a mental health crisis, people call the police before they call the health service. The Right Care, Right Person strategy is excellent. It is a good policy, but it needs to be implemented. We need to see that happen.

As I said, I absolutely believe that the Minister and his officials have bought into that strategy, but we need action on it and we need to see it being moved on. I apologise; I should have declared that I am a member of the Policing Board. We on the Policing Board have heard repeatedly from the senior team about how not only could the Right Care, Right Person model deliver but how the pathways need to be in our health service. That is what we are asking for today.

889 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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