A NEW strategy for police custody has been launched with the \u201cambition to eliminate the use of custody for people with mental ill health\u201d.<\/p>\n
A new Memorandum of Understanding has also been drawn up for police and healthcare professionals about when officers should attend incidents.<\/p>\n
The National Custody Strategy sets out a number of aspirations for police custody, including eliminating the use of police custody for Mental Health Act detentions and ensuring children are only held in custody as a last resort.<\/p>\n
National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council Lead on Custody, Chief Constable Nick Ephgrave said: \u201cPolice custody is a fundamental tool in police investigations that must be used fairly and consistently across police forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am pleased to launch the first National Custody Strategy to provide a clear vision for custody and drive important work under the three themes of efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strategy also wants to<\/p>\n
\u2013 encourage innovative but appropriate alternatives to custody;<\/p>\n
\u2013 utilise opportunities to collaborate where it will save money or help us work better;<\/p>\n
\u2013 and consistently identify and manage risk.<\/p>\n
In similar news, People restrained in mental health settings will get the care they need \u2018rather than control\u2019 under new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) drawn up for police and healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n
Until now there was no clear national position about when the police can be asked to attend mental health and learning disability settings and for what reasons.<\/p>\n
Police officers do not have specific powers to restrain a patient for the purposes of medical treatment regardless of whether the treatment is in the patient\u2019s best interests however, research by Mind in 2013 revealed there is significant variance in the extent to which healthcare providers call the police for support around restraint and restrictive practices.<\/p>\n
Commander Christine Jones, National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council lead for mental health, said: \u201cWe know physical restraint can be humiliating, terrifying, dangerous and even life-threatening.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, for the first time, a Memorandum of Understanding has been agreed that sets a clear national position about when the police can be asked to attend mental health settings, for what reasons and what can be expected of them when they do attend.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MoU outlines police powers, the law, what healthcare professionals are committed to doing, how to manage uncertainties, restraint and restrictive practices and practical case studies showing good practice.\u00a0 It also encourages police and healthcare professionals to continue reviewing and learning from incidents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A NEW strategy for police custody has been launched with the \u201cambition to eliminate the use of custody for people with mental ill health\u201d. A new Memorandum of Understanding has\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3340,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339\/revisions\/3340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}