Dedicated mental health ambulances to be rolled out across the West Midlands

The vehicles will be staffed by paramedics specially trained to care for people experiencing mental health crises.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the West Midlands Ambulance Service this week, its chief executive, Professor Anthony Marsh, said there had been a lot of discussion about how the emergency services should response to mental health incidents.

This week it was announced that police officers in England will no longer respond to concerns about mental health if there is no risk to life or crime being committed, under new plans.

The Government says the policy could save a million hours of police time every year. But charities have said they are concerned there would be no-one to step in in a crisis.

Professor Marsh said: "It is quite right that patients who need mental health care are looked after by mental health professionals.

"We will be rolling out special mental health ambulances staffed by specially trained paramedics to care for those people."

In his annual report Professor Marsh praised all the different strands of the West Midlands Ambulance Service.

He said people that when people thought of the ambulance service they thought of emergency ambulances dealing with 999 calls.

But, he said, the service did much more.

For instance he said it had hundreds of volunteers working as Community First Responders.

"They are the unsung heroes of the ambulance service across the country. They work, often in difficult circumstances, often in very rural communities. They undertake regular training to maintain their competence and confidence.

"I also want to thank everyone in the ambulance service who made enormous efforts and worked so hard to ensure that the Commonweath Games was a huge success."