The Crisis Care Concordat launched in February 2014, comprised of twenty two agencies involved in providing crisis responses coming together at national level to plan improvement to the crisis care that people could receive. The NHS England ‘Five Year Forward View for Mental Health’ further prioritised mental health crisis care as part of its parity of esteem commitments.

At the heart of this significant impetus to reduce the disparities between mental and physical health, was the message that has been acknowledged by NHS England, from people and their families that ‘mental health crisis requires significant transformation’. So it is timely and welcome that a review of the evidence has been conducted to synthesise the effectiveness of crisis care and treatment (Paton et al, 2016).