Mental health advance statements: crossing the divide from clinical to law enforcement settings

It is clear that police in many jurisdictions are increasingly being called out to situations involving persons with mental distress. In Scotland, for example, notifications of Place of Safety Orders to the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland increased from 130 in 2006/2007 to 1133 in 2016/2017 (Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, 2018). Whilst this may reflect better police reporting (Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, 2018) and these figures only account for those persons assessed in Accident and Emergency departments and not elsewhere (McGeough and Foster, 2018) this nevertheless represents a significant increase