Northern Ireland’s police service is stepping back from roughly 30,000 mental health call-outs a year, about 80 a day, a shift that redistributes operational burden across the region’s emergency and care systems and, according to its critics, transfers risk onto services that are already stretched thin. A “significant proportion” of those calls come from health workers themselves.
Under the new policy, known as Right Care Right Person, the Police Service of Northern Ireland will no longer carry out concern-for-welfare checks from the start of November unless there is a risk to life, a risk of harm, or a crime involved. The approach has been in place among some forces in England and Wales since 2023 and is being introduced in Northern Ireland in phases.
For the public, dialling 999 remains unchanged. What changes is what happens next. Calls will be triaged, and handlers may pass them to other emergency services or to health and social care staff. The PSNI frames the change as a matter of efficiency and appropriate resourcing, saying it will “reduce avoidable delays, improve consistency in decision-making, and support safe and lawful practice across Northern Ireland”.
The economics of the policy are stark. Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson told a Stormont committee that mental health contacts had reached “unprecedented levels”, with thousands of calls received about a person potentially in danger, of which just 3% related to crime. In effect, the force has been absorbing demand that, by its own accounting, largely falls outside its remit, and the new policy is designed to redirect that demand to the professionals equipped to handle it.
Supporters argue the reallocation is overdue. Prof Siobhan O’Neill, the Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland, called the policy an important step forward, saying the police were attending calls “where there really wasn’t a policing issue” and that the systems are working together well to ensure people in crisis receive a response.
Charles Little, whose parents-in-law Michael and Marjorie Cawdery were killed in a “frenzied attack” in their home in 2017 by Thomas Scott McEntee, who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years, said the policy might have “saved the day” had it existed then. A review after the murders found the PSNI and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust had “missed opportunities” to detain McEntee in the days before the attack. Little added that a police arrival can be frightening for someone in crisis and “might worsen the situation”, noting that police are “effectively the mental health front line” at present.
Meanwhile, the central concern among health and social care professionals is capacity. Dr Ross Irvine of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Northern Ireland warned that “our mental health services are currently at crisis point”, with 30% of posts across the province sitting vacant and “real-world implications” as a result. A policy that removes the safety net the PSNI currently provides, he said, and transfers it onto services “already struggling to stand still” gives cause for concern.
George Hannah of the British Association of Social Workers said members report the rollout is “too quick” and that there are not sufficient resources in the system to do it safely. While most social workers would prefer not to work alongside police because of the potential for escalation, he said, not knowing whether additional support will be available raises worries. “If the care isn’t available in the system, then we’re just moving people around,” he said.
O’Neill shares the funding worry. She has previously called for a Regional Crisis Intervention Service for Northern Ireland and said she is disappointed that investment in health and mental health services has not materialised to provide a backfill, alternative service. The policy’s success, on this reading, depends less on the police withdrawal itself than on whether the receiving services are resourced to absorb the demand now being redirected their way.