The study, published this week (3 December), evaluated the implementation of RCRP from a sample of police, fire, health and social care services in England.
The Right Care, Right Person approach aims to ensure that people of all ages who have health or social care needs are responded to by the right person, with the right skills, training and experience to best meet their needs.
A joint approach across a range of partner agencies is required for RCRP to be implemented.
In July 2023, the National Partnership Agreement (NPA) was published - setting out a collective national commitment from the Home Office, the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, the College of Policing and NHS England to work to support the end of “inappropriate and avoidable” involvement of police in responding to incidents involving people with mental health needs.
The NPA has previously been criticised by the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Association of Directors of Children's Services, who highlighted its potential wider impacts on councils, particularly regarding safeguarding and the need to seek engagement.
Key findings of the joint Home Office and DHSC report included:
- Communication and engagement were identified by the police, health and social care as being “crucial” when implementing RCRP. The sharing of information and knowledge improved understanding of RCRP and partners’ responsibilities.
- Police, Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Local Authority staff felt that collaborative partnership working had improved since RCRP had been implemented. Where there was broad involvement of partners, relationships were reported to have improved.
- Several stakeholders were not routinely included in discussions around RCRP, such as children and young people’s services.
- A key risk identified by integrated care boards, 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.
- Police reported a perceived reduction in demand, with less time spent dealing with certain incidents and a perceived reduction in calls from partner agencies.
Looking at barriers to implementation, report authors found that 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 report noted: “Absorbing this demand has been made more challenging by wider increases in demand for health and social care services and ongoing resource challenges in many ICBs and LAs.”
The report made the following “good practice” recommendations to support the implementation of RCRP:
- multi-agency working groups meeting regularly to discuss implementation plans openly
- internal communication within organisations so everyone understands the RCRP approach and external communication with partners
- sharing of learning between partner organisations and across areas
- adequate training for staff, ensuring legal responsibilities and guidelines are followed
- effective safety protocols and single points of contact to facilitate communication
- a phased implementation approach
- establishing robust and trusted escalation processes for reviewing incidents.
It concluded: “The findings highlight the importance of communication, openness and transparency when implementing RCRP across multiple agencies. While generally supportive of RCRP principles, research participants highlighted challenges with implementation, such as a high demand on (mental) health services, while simultaneously not feeling adequately resourced. Participants also expressed concerns about operational challenges, such as insufficient clarity about roles and responsibilities, potential gaps in service delivery and inconsistent decision making.
“As RCRP implementation progresses, HO and DHSC encourage all multi-agency partnerships to collaboratively assess their implementation process and monitor impacts on their local population.”
Lottie Winson