Mental health emergency
If a person’s mental or emotional state gets worse quickly this can be called a mental health emergency or mental health crisis. In this situation, it’s important to get help quickly.
- Make an emergency appointment with the employee’s doctor (GP) or call their doctor’s surgery out-of-hours service if the emergency is at night or during the weekend.
- Go to the accident and emergency department at the local hospital.
- Call the employee’s Mental Health Worker or Care Co-ordinator if they have one.
- Call the local mental health crisis team – this is usually part of the social services team.
Most areas have a mental health crisis team. These teams are made up of psychiatric nurses, social workers and support workers and:
- are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
- respond to a crisis within four hours wherever possible,
- carry out assessments under the Mental Health Act (1983),
- provide support and short-term help until another team is available or the help is no longer needed.
Mental health crisis teams are part of social services and their contact details should be available through your local council.
If you feel someone is a danger to themselves or others, call your local council’s social services team. If there is an immediate danger call the police on 999.
Free Health Risk Assessment
If you need to talk to someone
If you want to call someone about how you feel or how you deal with someone else’s behaviour, you could call the Samaritans on 116 123 (UK) or email them at jo@samaritans.org.
