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Health based places of safety or section 136 suites

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Health based places of safety are places where ambulance crews or the police can take people who are in mental health crisis, to be supported and where a plan for their on-going care can be made.

Currently the provision of health based places of safety is not up to standard across London and NW London as there is:

  • A lack of a consistent offer
  • lack of capacity at some sites
  • difficulties in accessing inpatient beds
  • staff not being available
  • lack of out of hours availability when demand is highest

These services are being reviewed across the whole of London, and in NW London we are currently talking to those who have used a section 136 facility, their family and carers, to develop a new way to provide these services.

Our engagement work

Engagement has taken place across London over the last two years and locally across NW London in 2018, the following report 'Health Based Places of Safety Engagement progress report and forward plan' details our engagement work to-date and includes engagement plans for 2019.

You can find a more detailed overview of the programme in this paper (from page 13 onwards), which was discussed at the NW London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee in December 2018. 

Project updates

January 2019 - response to a paper being discussed by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

April 2019 - update regarding reevaluation of the programme

Getting involved

If you would like to feed into this work or have used a health based place of safety in the last two years and you would like to share your thoughts on any aspect of the service, there are several ways to contact us:

  • You can talk to one of the team at ‘Rethink Mental Illness’, (who are supporting this project) by calling 020 7840 3029 
  • You can write to us, email: samantha.holmes@rethink.org
  • Or post: FREEPOST:HEALTHIER NORTH WEST LONDON
  • Or you can use our online survey which you can find here: www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/NWLplacesofsafety (Please consider completing the survey with support.)