The police were called out 96,000 times last year to deal with people causing disruption due to psychiatric issues, double the 2011 total, the NRC said on Wednesday.

Of them, 2,300 people ended up in a police cell because they were causing problems or were a risk to themselves or others, police spokesman Henk van Dijk told the paper.

There are various reasons for the increase, including cuts in the number of beds in psychiatric institutions, as part of a care in the community approach. The number of beds in institutions has gone down by one third in the past few years.

The reports concern a wide variety of cases, Van Dijk said. They include psychiatric patients who live at home, drugs users and homeless people and around 10% of cases are elderly people with dementia. The reports are made by neighbours, family members and passersby as well as by the patients themselves.

A year ago, junior health minister Paul Blokhuis pledged to set up a national hotline where people could report problems, but this is still not operational, the paper said.