Mental health response vehicles help cut A&E admissions in the South and West
The vehicles offer quicker, more appropriate help than a standard ambulance
We're hearing how specialist mental health response vehicles are helping cut hospital admissions across the South and West.
The service, run by South Western Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust, sends dedicated teams in specially designed ambulances to support people in crisis, to make sure they get the help they need.
The Trust says the vehicles offer quicker, more appropriate help than a standard ambulance.
Since they were launched in Somerset less than two years ago, for example, they've helped over seven hundred people avoid trips to A&E, and the teams have supported around 90% of people they've seen at home.
Matthew Truscott is Head of Mental Health at South Western Ambulance Service and told us about some of the challenges: "We go out to people's homes, but we could also be called to the side of a very busy street - absolutely anywhere.
"For a mental health practitioner like me it's very unusual to get to see someone that quickly and then have to assess their mental state. "You arrive into a very acute situation."
He says treating someone at home can help with assessments: "When you assess someone at home, the environment you're in gives you a lot of cues too help assess how well a person is looking after themselves. It can be more challenging when you're outside in the woods or on the side of a street."
Matthew's hopeful there will be more of these vehicles rolled out in the future: "Historically we'd have sent ambulances out to these cases, and we still do sometimes because we don't have enough of these vehicles to get to all of the mental health patients.
"When we do that, we send crews that are inexperienced in mental health, so really, it's about getting that patient in from of a metal health practitioner as soon as possible.
"These vehicles allow us to do that."