Recommendation - Suffolk Constabulary, May 2022
We identified organisational learning from a review in regard to a couple's remand in custody.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that Suffolk Constabulary review their custody booking-in procedure to ensure that when two or more detainees are brought into custody with named (boxed) medication, these are separated, booked-in with each respective detainee and recorded on the Custody Record of the individual detainee whose medication it is.
This follows a case where an elderly couple were arrested on suspicion of fraud and harassment. They were taken into custody with their medication. On arrival into custody the medication was booked in under the male detainee's name, despite some of the boxes labelled for the female detainee. The female detainee was released from custody earlier than the male but her medication remained in custody. The female detainee is alleged to have missed her required medication and that this had a negative impact on her health.
Do you accept the recommendation?
No
This particular recommendation has generated a lot of discussion as an SLT team. Essentially, as far as I can see, we are not in a position where we can agree/accept the recommendation as we already undertake what you are recommending we do. Your recommendation is:
The IOPC recommends that Suffolk Constabulary amend their custody booking in policy to include recording on the Custody Record the details of any medication together with the name of the individual to whom the medication has been prescribed.
As you are aware, this follows a case where an elderly couple were arrested on suspicion of fraud and harassment and they were taken into custody with their medication. There were two risks identified - the female may have been sent home without her medication and both the IO and the IOPC were unable to say with much confidence whether the female was sent home without her medication or not because there was no record of what the medication was or to whom it had been prescribed on the custody record.
I’m aware that a Sergeant has already been in contact with you. As a trained custody Sergeant, he knew that what they were recommending, we already have in place. I’m also aware that your response was to reiterate the same recommendation. Following this, the Sergeant spoke with the training lead for custody and the IO of the original complaint and reviewed our processes to make sure that they are the same in both counties for booking in and storing medication in custody. He went back to you to confirm the following:
“I can confirm the process already in place is to separate medication and book it in under individual custody records, it is then placed in ‘medication lockers’ specific to the each detainee. The policy supports this procedure. Athena prompts the officer/ staff member during the booking process to record medication, which then appears on the custody record.
The medication lockers are clearly marked denoting the associated cell and magnetic labels are used to show the lockers contain medication.
If the medication for another detainee was booked into the wrong persons property, this would appear to be an individual error rather than an organisational one?”
Unfortunately, you have come back a second time and said you still agree with the original recommendation. However, we already individually book in medication for each detainee, it is bagged, recorded on Athena and then placed in a medicine locker specific to that detainee. The medication lockers are denoted by cell numbers i.e. Mr SMITH in Cell A1 – his property goes in locker A1, his medication is separated and put into Medicine locker A1.
Having reviewed the complaint it appears that the custody sergeant didn’t do anything wrong in this instance. The medication that was booked in, didn’t have a name on it in the first place, so the custody sergeant wouldn’t have known which one of the couple it belonged to, all that was known was that it was physically in the possession of the male detainee. This was further exacerbated due to both detainees being uncooperative and would not tell the arresting officer who the medication belonged to and then wouldn’t cooperate with the custody booking in procedure.
We would pose the question to you of what is it that you propose we put in place over and above what we are already doing to ensure that this situation does not happen again. I would be more than happy to consider a different recommendation but do not see that I can accept a recommendation that we already undertake as there is no action we can actually take.