EXTENDING powers for NHS staff to detain mental-health patients could cause “significant harm with dangerous consequences,” health and social care leaders have warned.

Organisations including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Nursing, Association of Ambulance Chief Executives and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services have issued a joint statement condemning proposed changes to the Mental Health Bill that they say would set a dangerous precedent and put people at risk.

Under new amendments backed by the House of Lords, health staff, including doctors and nurses, could be authorised to detain and restrain people experiencing a mental health crisis without police attendance, whether in public spaces or in their own homes.

The proposals, put forward by Tory shadow health minister Lord Kamall, were passed despite opposition from Health Minister Baroness Merron, who said the government did not support “extending police powers in this way.”

The change follows pressure from police leaders, who have long raised concerns about the growing number of mental-health-related incidents that officers are called to attend.

But health leaders have hit back, warning that removing police from these situations puts both patients and clinicians at risk and could undermine trust in mental-health services.

They said: “Reducing police involvement in mental health emergencies could lead to serious risks for both patients and clinicians.”

The organisations also warn that allowing NHS staff to detain people could damage therapeutic relationships, discourage people from seeking help and increase the risk of harm, especially for people from minority backgrounds.

Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Tony O’ Sullivan said that mental-health services need urgent extra resources and that support for people in crisis — and the staff who care for them — has to be paramount. 

“The wrong answer is to demand that NHS staff change their role from carers to law enforcement in policing the new Mental Health Act,” he told the Star. “This compromises the primary professional duties of staff and fails to stop the erosion of numbers of mental-health beds. 

“At best this is misguided. At worst it has echoes of asking NHS staff to take on the role of ‘border guards’ for undocumented people facing health charges when what is needed is compassion and safe access to care.”

Liberation founder Dorothy Gould said that the main issue with the plan is that detaining mental-health patients against their will in psychiatric hospitals and then forcibly treating them should not be happening at all.

“These forms of coercion are a major breach of our human rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People,” she said.