Police ​in England​ cut back on mental health callouts as officers set to prioritise protecting the public

Officers will now only respond when there is a public safety risk of crime being committed.

However, they will not be expected to respond to welfare checks or to patients who have missed appointments.

Policing Minister Chris Philp told GB News: “Police spend a lot of their time attending mental health incidents where there is no threat to safety, either the individual or general public safety, and where there is no criminality.

“In those cases, the appropriate response is a health response because the person suffering from a mental crisis needs medical assistance.”

The framework will alter current rules which require police officers to wait with patients detained under the Mental Health Act for an average of 12 hours before receiving medical care.

New rules will cut the requirement to just one hour.

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Philp, who was first elected as the MP for Croydon South in 2015, revealed it is up to the 43 police forces across England and Wales to liaise with respective local healthcare boards to figure out how and when changes will be enforced.

He added: “We also estimate across the whole country it’ll save a million hours a year of police time that can be spent patrolling our streets, protecting the public and catching criminals which is what I think the public expect to see police doing.”

The system was piloted under the Right Care, Right Person scheme in Humberside.

Humberside Police saved approximately 17,000 hours a year after liaising with the local NHS trust to take on mental health cases.

The nationwide rollout will see an additional £2.3billion in funding given to mental health services by April 2024.

A further £150million will go towards building new facilities and a 24-hour mental health crisis phone line is expected to be set up by March next year.

Mark Winstanley, chief executive of charity Rethink Mental Illness, welcomed the move saying it was "right in principle" to bring in changes over time.

However, he also warned it "remains unclear" how support will be given to the wider sector to meet the rising levels of need.

Mind chief executive Dr Sarah Hughes also claimed mental health services were "not resourced to step up overnight".

She told the BBC: "We're nowhere near a situation where services are in a strong enough place to pick up the slack."

The Metropolitan Police is going further than other forces.

Scotland Yard’s commissioner Sir Mark Rowley confirmed the Met will stop responding to mental health callouts from September, unless there is a threat to life.