Recommendation - Bedfordshire Police, November 2020
A single crewed officer was driving a police vehicle with a female passenger seated in the rear of the vehicle. The woman had known mental health issues and was being transported to hospital for voluntary assessment, when the officer noticed that the woman had placed her seatbelt around her neck and had leant forward. The woman was unconscious, not breathing and the officer performed CPR after removing the woman from the vehicle.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that Bedfordshire Police should review and amend their policy and guidance regarding the transportation of vulnerable individuals with single crewed officers. The same policy, guidance, risk assessments and safeguarding considerations for those arrested or formally detained should also apply to anyone who has not been arrested or formally detained.
A single crewed officer was driving a police vehicle with a female passenger seated in the rear of the vehicle. The woman had known mental health issues and was being transported to hospital for voluntary assessment, when the officer noticed that the woman had placed her seatbelt around her neck and had leant forward. The woman was unconscious, not breathing and the officer performed CPR after removing the woman from the vehicle. In order to protect officers and to ensure the safeguarding of those being transported, it is recomended that an additional officer should be allocated the role of escorting officer with anyone being transported in the rear of a police vehicle.
The same policy, guidance, risk assessments and safeguarding considerations for those arrested or formally detained should also apply to anyone who has not been arrested or formally detained.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
Locally there are a few BCH policies that touch on this and the guidance in the policies are as follows:
- In general police should not be transporting individuals for a non-policing purpose.
- As reflected in the s136 mental health policy police vehicles should not be used to transport patients suffering with mental ill health – while this focuses on the section 136 detainee the spirit reflects the circumstances of this incident.
- The custody release policy also acknowledges that police vehicles should not be used to transport people home on release from custody
- The members of the public ‘ride along policy’ loosely links into this theme of who is transported outside of arrest in police cars
However, to be too restrictive would hamper safeguarding and operational delivery and the police primary responsibility for ‘protecting life’.
Police are able to transport section 136 patients in police cars if there is an exceptional delay in the provision of an ambulance.
Likewise we can use police vehicles to take released prisoners home where there are vulnerabilities and a requirement to prioritise safeguarding where this is the appropriate course of action to take.
There are a numerous other situations where this would also be right for example transportation of victims to a safe address or returning young and vulnerable missing persons home where Police Protection powers have not been used and social services assistance or their provision of a taxi is not possible.
A policy / SOP to cover the multiple and varied incidents we manage would make it difficult to be overly prescriptive. Potentially this can be resolved by adopting a position where staff seek authorisation to convey persons via supervisors on a case by case basis with a rationale recorded on the ISR (incident log) where transportation is not covered by policy. This is being reviewed by the portfolio lead.
The IOPC recommends that Bedfordshire Police implement a robust protocol with the ambulance service that addresses the transportation of vulnerable people, who have not been arrested or formally detained, and require transportation for mental health support.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
Locally there are a few BCH policies that touch on this and the guidance in the policies are as follows:
- In general police should not be transporting individuals for a non-policing purpose.
- As reflected in the s136 mental health policy police vehicles should not be used to transport patients suffering with mental ill health – while this focusses on the section 136 detainee the spirit reflects the circumstances of this incident.
- The custody release policy also acknowledges that police vehicles should not be used to transport people home on release from custody
- The members of the public ‘ride along policy’ loosely links into this theme of who is transported outside of arrest in police cars
However , to be too restrictive would hamper safeguarding and operational delivery and the police primary responsibility for ‘protecting life’.
Police are able to transport section 136 patients in police cars if there is an exceptional delay in the provision of an ambulance.
Likewise we can use police vehicles to take released prisoners home where there are vulnerabilities and a requirement to prioritise safeguarding where this is the appropriate course of action to take.
There are a numerous other situations where this would also be right for example transportation of victims to a safe address or returning young and vulnerable missing persons home where Police Protection powers have not been used and social services assistance or their provision of a taxi is not possible.
A policy / SOP to cover the multiple and varied incidents we manage would make it difficult to be overly prescriptive. Potentially this can be resolved by adopting a position where staff seek authorisation to convey persons via supervisors on a case by case basis with a rationale recorded on the ISR (incident log) where transportation is not covered by policy. This is being reviewed by the portfolio lead.