‘Give AMHPs the therapeutic tools they need to underpin least restrictive practice’

By Nick Perry, AMHP and visiting lecturer
In February 2023, Community Care reported concerns from the Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHP) Leads Network about the risks to people in crisis from severe delays to Mental Health Act (MHA) assessments, on the back of rising demand since the Covid-19 pandemic.
As someone working full-time in a dedicated local authority AMHP team, this was a picture I recognised. My own MHA assessment numbers skyrocketed from 94 assessments in 2019, to 179 in 20