IT is good to hear police and health bosses are joining forces and setting out their intentions to improve the care and support of people with mental health problems.

On too many occasions people who have not committed any crime but who are in urgent need of medical health care, have ended up in a police cell because no hospital bed can be found for them.

This is an unacceptable state of affairs.

However there is a still a long way to go, but the signing of a Sussex-wide agreement to tackle mental health issues is welcome.

One in four people develop a mental health condition at some point in our lives yet it remains a difficult and taboo subject.

Bringing the issue sharply into focus like this will hopefully improve matters not only for sufferers but for the police who do their best to help but are all too often placed in situations which should really be handled by medics or social services.