Response to safe and well check request - West Mercia Police, March 2018

At 9.20am on 2 March 2018, a member of the public contacted West Mercia Police to request a ‘safe and well’ check on their new neighbour at the advice of social services, whom they had already contacted but couldn’t assist, as they had no record of the woman living there. An incident log was created and graded at level 2, but at 9.35am, another officer downgraded it to a 4 with a direction for social services to be called, as it was not a police matter.

At 4.29pm, the log was updated: social services had been contacted and had said they had no record of the named woman living at the address. Social services asked the police to make enquiries at the address then make a referral to their out-of-hours team.

On 3 March, at 3.26pm, the log was reviewed and regraded as a 2, with an instruction to re-contact the initial caller for further details, and for officers to attend to conduct a welfare check if this failed. At 4.50pm, officers went to the woman’s home but could not gain entry to the block of flats.

On 4 March, at 11.46am, the initial caller contacted the police and provided access codes to facilitate entry to the building. Officers attended at 3.39pm and recorded the fact that there was no answer at the door, with all appearing to be in order.

On 5 March, at 12.27pm, police officers attended, forced entry to the flat and found the woman dead on the floor. A subsequent post-mortem examination concluded the woman had died suddenly and unexpectedly due to alcoholism.

During the investigation, the incident log of 2 March 2018 was examined. The West Mercia Police Operations and Communications Centre (OCC) Manager provided a witness statement in relation to the incident log. One police officer and three members of police staff in the OCC were served with notices that their actions were being investigated. They provided responses to the allegations, which we also considered and compared against policy and procedure.

We were of the opinion that the police officer who had regraded the incident had done so after having appropriately applied the national decision making model, in view of the limited resources and the information available at the time, and in line with force policies.

We were also of the opinion that the three members of police staff had also appropriately applied the national decision making model and force policies when subsequently reviewing the incident, based on resources and information available at the time.

Based on the evidence available, we found no indication that any person serving with the police may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings, or had committed a criminal offence. We completed our investigation in November 2018.

After reviewing our report, West Mercia Police agreed. They advised that our report would be shared with the OCC Chief Inspector so that systems and process could be reviewed in light of this incident and improvements made where possible.