A BARNSLEY man who called an ambulance 51 times during a six-month period has been ordered to seek help from mental health services.
The 35-year-old, who has not been named, was the subject of a civil injunction at a hearing at Barnsley Magistrates’ Court earlier this month after South Yorkshire Police put forward the case.
The court was told he persistently called emergency services, before cancelling many of his requests for help when professionals arrived. Of the 51 calls he made, he cancelled 31 when crews arrived.
PC Paul Davies, triage and case management officer, said: “The decision to take court action in order to remedy the situation was not taken lightly but should help protect valuable public resources.
“Even though he had been diagnosed with a mental illness, the man had capacity to realise what he was doing was wrong.
“We have a duty to protect services from being abused so they are available to the public in a genuine emergency.”
The man also frequently presented at Barnsley Hospital’s accident and emergency department before going missing. These actions led to police officers spending many hours searching for him, due to concerns for his welfare.
South Yorkshire Police attended 103 incidents involving the man in 12 months, according to PC Davies.
The court was also told how healthcare professionals had agreed that emergency services were being misused and the man was making inappropriate demands, which could be avoided.
Other conditions of the injunction are for the man to only contact his dedicated mental health team and GP when needing assistance, and not to discharge himself from hospital.
It is the first court case that has come about from Barnsley’s new four-hub tiered policing approach, which sees officers at the town centre, Goldthorpe, Kendray and Royston deal with low-level issues such as antisocial behaviour before cases can be escalated up to case management basis if it’s deemed the problem requires more intervention.
Case management staff, which step in when an issue goes higher than the local policing teams’ remit, could move into the four hubs, while specialist mental health workers could also follow to provide more support to prevent incidents such as cold calling.
Inspector Andrew Norton said: “The benefits of this structure, and having a tiered approach, means the local-based policing teams across Barnsley can focus on street-level issues.
“There are less officers than before but this targeted approach, and having the tiers in order to cope the best, has been focused in order to make use of the resources we do have.
“Reducing risks boosts the public’s confidence and ultimately cuts the demand on teams.”
