Bedfordshire’s specialist mental health ambulance team helped 26 people in crisis over the Christmas and New Year period, with most patients supported without needing to go to hospital.
Between 23 December 2025 and 1 January 2026, Bedfordshire’s mental health response vehicle, staffed by an East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) paramedic and a mental health clinician, attended 11 emergencies in person and gave telephone advice in 15 cases.
Across the wider East of England, mental health response vehicles (MHRVs) dealt with 233 contacts over the same period, with 135 face-to-face and 98 by direct telephone advice to ambulance and police colleagues on scene and in 999 control rooms.
Reducing hospital pressure
Of all the patients supported by the MHRVs over Christmas and New Year, 80% were signposted to community specialist services rather than taken to hospital.
Seventeen per cent were transported to hospital for physical health reasons, and just 3% needed to go to hospital for emergency mental health care that could not be managed safely in the community.
The dedicated vehicles operate across all six counties covered by EEAST. Over the festive period, they supported:
- Bedfordshire: 11 face-to-face contacts, 15 telephone advice contacts
- Cambridgeshire and Peterborough: 23 face-to-face, 13 telephone
- Norfolk and Waveney: eight face-to-face, 17 telephone
- Hertfordshire and West Essex: 32 face-to-face, 16 telephone
- Mid and South Essex: 24 face-to-face, 18 telephone
- Suffolk and North East Essex: 37 face-to-face, 19 telephone
Mental health specialists on 999
The mental health response vehicles are dispatched to appropriate 999 calls where someone is experiencing a mental health crisis.
Each vehicle carries a paramedic and a mental health clinician, so patients can be assessed and supported by the right professionals at the time they most need help.
Liz Ip Piang Siong, Head of Mental Health for EEAST, said: “For people in a mental health crisis, going to hospital can often be more distressing so our approach, which aims to provide care outside of a hospital environment, is often preferable for patients.
“Additionally, our Mental Health Response Vehicles have a vital role in delivering EEAST’s mental health commitments under the NHS 10-year plan.
“[Which are] providing early intervention, helping prevent patients in mental health crisis deteriorating further, and avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions.”
EEAST said the Christmas and New Year figures show how having specialist mental health support embedded in the ambulance service can help more people get the right care, while keeping busy emergency teams free for those who need hospital treatment most.
