Specialist mental health crisis centres will be opened across England over the next decade in a bid to reduce crowding in accident and emergency departments (A&E), the NHS has confirmed.

Ten hospital trusts have been piloting new assessment centres to deal with people experiencing a mental health crisis.

The aim is to get these patients to appropriate care in a calm environment, avoiding long waits in A&E.

NHS England said the new units would reduce overcrowding in hospitals and relieve pressure on emergency services, including the police.

But Andy Bell, the CEO of the Centre for Mental Health, said any new provision needed to be properly funded.

The scheme is expected to be expanded nationally to “dozens of locations”, the government said, as part of its ten-year NHS plan.

These clinics will be open to walk-in patients as well as those referred by GPs and police, with specialist staff present to treat people in acute mental distress.

Speaking to the Times newspaper, NHS England chief Sir Jim Mackey hailed the “pioneering new model of care”, where people can “get the right support in the right setting”.

“As well as relieving pressure on our busy A&Es, mental health crisis assessment centres can speed up access to appropriate care, offering people the help they need much sooner so they can stay out of hospital.”

Andy Bell told BBC Breakfast he was sceptical of the scheme because it was untested.

He said it was impossible to separate out physical and mental health problems so simply, calling for separate facilities to be put in place “carefully”.

“We need to robustly test the model at every stage before we even think about rolling it out nationally,” Mr Bell added.

Calling for better funding of NHS mental health services, he noted the share of health spending on mental health treatment had gone down last year and was set to do so again.

A recent study of emergency care in England found that the number of people waiting 12 hours or more in A&E after a decision to admit to a ward was the highest since modern records began. It topped 60,000 in January, or 11% of emergency admissions.

The government also announced the expansion of a scheme last month to help GPs provide care and advice to patients, without them joining long NHS hospital waiting lists in England.