Response to concern for welfare report - Greater Manchester Police, February 2018
At 4.05pm on 22 February 2018, a support worker contacted Greater Manchester Police (GMP) reporting concern for a man he supported. The man had last collected his methadone prescription on 19 February 2018 and this was described as out of character. He said that the man’s phone was initially ringing out, but it now appeared switched off.
This was initially graded as a ‘grade 2’, requiring a response within one hour of the call. The radio operator escalated this log to the attention of a sergeant as they were unable to allocate any resource due to ongoing higher-priority incidents. Shortly after, a sergeant noted on the incident log that this didn’t appear to be a police matter, and that the caller should be advised to make basic enquiries themselves and call the police again if necessary.
GMP contacted the support worker again, who gave similar information as previously, and said that he had been to the man’s home and there had been no answer, but some lights were on. GMP did not escalate the matter at this point and the incident was delayed for a number of hours as no patrols were available.
At 12.38am on 23 February, officers gained entry to the man’s home and found him dead in his kitchen. At an inquest held later into the man’s death the Coroner determined that the man had died of combined drug toxicity.
Our investigators commissioned an overview report examining the handling of the log, obtained statements from the officers and police staff involved, and took statements from the Operations Control Branch staff involved.
Based on the evidence available, we were of the opinion that there was no evidence that any officer has misconducted themselves to such an extent that disciplinary proceedings would be warranted. We considered that a number of radio operators had breached force policy when they did not escalate this matter to supervision. We suggested this should be dealt with by way of performance for the individuals and a wider learning point for the force. We completed our investigation in December 2018.
After reviewing our report, GMP’s view was that, although there had been no performance issue warranting unsatisfactory performance procedures, the radio operators had not taken sufficient and reasonable steps to escalate the incident in line with concerns around the man’s vulnerabilities. The delay in going to the man’s home due to lack of available resources also highlighted a wider learning issue for the force. GMP proposed to deal with this through management advice for the radio operators. GMP also advised that Operations Control Branch staff’s understanding of vulnerability would be reviewed, and that staff would receive refresher training around escalation policy and procedures.