Debate contribution: PSNI: Pressure due to Health System Failings

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 1 December 2025.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

1 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

PSNI: Pressure due to Health System Failings

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5269427

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the debate, but I do so with a sense of deep concern, sympathy and frustration at the position in which the Executive continue to place our police officers and some of the most vulnerable members of society. It is simply astounding that, for example, the police respond to over 100 concern for safety calls every day, that more than 97% of those incidents have no link to a crime at all and that 1,600 a month have a mental health component. I will segue from that point by saying that I know that from being a member of the Policing Board, and I declare that as an interest. Every one of those calls takes time and resources, and they take officers off the streets and place them in situations that, essentially, they are not trained for and should never be expected to handle as primary responders. We are starting to get through some of the noise to hear agreement on that from everybody who has spoken so far. It is clear that it is not the police's fault. They are stepping into the breach because they care deeply about public safety, and they cannot, in good conscience, simply ignore somebody who is looking for help. It is an impossible position in which we place our police, because they should not be left to make clinical judgements at a roadside, and they should not have to sit for six, seven, eight or, as has been referenced, 14 hours in an emergency department, waiting for somebody in their care to have a mental health assessment. They should not be the first port of call for someone who is experiencing suicidal thoughts or an overdose or acute psychosis. That happens because there are gaps in other parts in the system, and they are being left to do it. It has not arisen because of a surge in crime, and it is not because of poor policing. It is because the health and social care system is under extreme strain, and vulnerable people are falling through the gaps. Those gaps have widened, and we have had many debates in recent months about the under-resourcing of our community mental health teams, delays to the implementation of the mental health strategy, inconsistent out-of-hours provision, the lack of crisis services that are available and the way in which we are removing funds from those who are providing alternatives to emergency departments. We have insufficient social care capacity, and we also have fragmented pathways between various agencies where people are looking for help. Because of all of those failings taken together, the police, already stretched to breaking point, are being asked to hold the system together. As is referenced in the motion, there is a solution, and it is not one that we need to invent. It is the Right Care, Right Person model. That model ensures that, when someone is in mental ill health, the responder is a mental health professional, not a police officer. It ensures that, when someone is experiencing a health emergency, the responder is in the health service and that, when somebody is in social distress, the responder is a social worker, not the police. That has been proven to work in other places, and it would be good to see whether we could get it to the stage of working here. However, for the model to work here, we need to see the Executive funding it and the responsible Ministers driving it, and we must see cross-departmental work between Justice and Health to address the issue. That is why we will be supporting the amendment to the motion. The old line that I have not trotted out in a while is not lost on me, so I will revisit it: we have a motion from one party in the Executive criticising another Executive party, with an amendment from another Executive party, all as part of a non-binding motion. We all agree on the fundamentals, so I would love to see the Executive going ahead and doing that.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. As I said, it is the old line that I trot out, and it is not meant to be aimed at an individual party. It is the frustration that the public feel when they ask us to stop talking about things and get on with doing them. If we are raising awareness and are pushing the Executive towards some sort of delivery on that front, that has to be something that is positive. I have a number of other pages in my speech to talk about how, if we do not change this, we will simply push our police, especially, to burnout because they are undertaking roles that they feel they are not trained to do. It puts them under pressure.

It is being done because the entire system is not being examined and dealt with properly. It is good that we have the model that is there. It would just be so good to see that model implemented, allowing our police to police and our medical staff to carry out their medical work. Fundamentally, if that was done and done properly, it would be for the good of the community as well, and that is what we would all like to see.

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

Assessment

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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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