For some while, it has been suggested that the police service need to define what they mean by an incident being ‘mental health related’. You know those claims you’ve heard may times about how X percent of police demand or police time is connected to mental health related jobs? … well, it’s always been true that we’ve never been entirely consistent or sure of what we’re counting.
When I first ventured the 20% figure on this BLOG many years ago, I knew what I was counting: I’d been keeping tallies as a response inspector of things going on whilst I was at work and would often take a snapshot of –
Today the College of Paramedics produced their position statement on Acute Behavioural Disturbance and it adds weigh to those tomes I’ve previously pushed as authorities or resources on the subject. ABD continues to be a subject of debate, arising recently in another post I did during a pre-inquest hearing in Bournemouth in to the death of Mr Douglas Oak who was 35yrs old. In that matter, Dorset Police called for support from South West Ambulance Service after believing Mr Oak was suffering from ABD and the subsequent issues with ambulance attendance have led to a comparatively rare direction from the Coroner who is inquiring in to Mr Oak’s death at a young age.
Bearing in mind a full inquest is yet to occur and not scheduled to take place until 2019, the Coroner gave the ambulance service two weeks to produce more material on ABD and their policy or response to it, and suggested that unless she was satisfied she may issue a preventing future deaths report prior to the full inquest occurring. I’m not sure I’ve ever known...
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This Summer saw the first Policing Governance Summit from CoPaCC and Policing Insight. I am not one for the Conference circuit but I was honoured to be asked to present at this one as it was an opportunity to be heard by a range of PCCs and OPCC staff. I have reproduced my speech in full here, in the hope to continue the conversation. The book I refer to is Policing and Public Management: Governance, Vices and Virtues. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Policing-Public-Management-Governance-Virtues/dp/1138044180/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538072091&sr=1-1&keywords=Policing+and+Public+Management Whilst it is an academic offering, I found it engaging and inspiring enough to recommend it to everyone with an interest in future Policing. Professors Kevin Morrell and Ben Bradshaw have taken modern examples of UK Policing and managed to discuss them around a Virtue Ethics approach – no easy task, but a wonderful springboard for my mind – perhaps for yours too?
I should add, the thoughts around HMIC, tick box...
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Have you ever been given a piece of work to do or faced some decision in your life where no matter what you do, you’ll be criticised? More than that: the vast majority of people will look at your decision and either criticise or comment that things could have been done differently?!
I’ve spent many hours this year, especially over the Summer, in various meetings associated with the Mental Health Act review. In particular, I was recently in the Advisory Group to the Review, chaired by Professor Sir Simon Wessely, past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Regious Professor of Psychological Medicine at King’s College, London. Whilst there, whilst listening to various people talking about the sensitive and important issues which may feature in the report the Professor must submit to the Prime Minister, two things ocurred to me:
