Improvements are needed in police custody across the Northumbria force, a report has revealed.
The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick and HM Inspector of Constabulary have said that police custody in Northumbria was mixed and some improvements were necessary after an unannounced inspection took place.
They were concerned to find that the force did not have sufficient focus on learning from adverse incidents, which included learning from four IPCC investigations, nor did it have robust quality assurance systems in place; handovers could be subject to incorrect recording of risk information and recording systems were a mix of paper and computer records, allowing for human error and omission in detainee information.
The report added that in most cases, risk assessments were routine and mechanistic; clinical governance of health care had not improved since the 2011 and inspection, and medical rooms varied in levels of cleanliness.
Nick Hardwick and Dru Sharpling said: “This report describes some good individual care of detainees but some processes to ensure this happened on a consistent basis required improvement. This report provides a number of recommendations to assist the force and the Police and Crime Commissioner to improve provision further. We expect our findings to be considered in the wider context of priorities and resourcing, and for an action plan to be provided in due course.”
A number of good points from the inspection were also highlighted:
*The Police and Crime Commissioner was involved in the training and development of an active Independent Custody Visitor scheme;
*the police service was in the process of opening a new custody suite while closing existing buildings, but continued to maintain those buildings to a good standard;
* individual detainee and officer interaction was respectful and sensitive and there were cases of exceptional individual attention;
* police officers made efforts to keep children out of custody; however when cases were more complex, staff did not pursue other options, such as the local authority, to provide alternative accommodation;
* there were examples of good multi-agency working to support detainees with a history of substance misuse; and
* the force, with help from partner agencies, had provided an improved scheme to help keep mentally-ill people out of police cells.
The inspection was part of a national programme of joint inspections of police custody. This was the second inspection of police custody in Northumbria with the first taking place in August 2011.
Northumbria covers a large geographical area and runz seven full-time custody suites: Newcastle Etal Lane, Sunderland Gillbridge, Washington, South Shields, Gateshead, Bedlington and Wallsend/Middle Engine Lane, as well as three part-time rural suites at Hexham, Alnwick and Berwick, and three part-time resilience suites at Southwick, Whickham and North Shields.