Response to concern for welfare report - Lancashire Constabulary, April 2017

On 21 April 2017 Lancashire Constabulary received a call reporting a concern for the welfare of a woman. An officer was dispatched approximately eight hours after this call was received. He went to her home address but received no response.

Another officer was dispatched approximately nine hours later and again received no response at the woman’s home. The decision was made to force entry and the woman was found dead inside the property.

During the investigation, our investigators interviewed the police control room staff and obtained accounts from the attending officers. We obtained audio recordings of radio transmissions and data from various police systems.

The investigator found no indication that any person serving with the police may have committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings.

Our investigation highlighted some areas of improvement for the force around understanding and communication between front-line officers and control room operators, particularly around how officers can use mobile devices to access information such as incident logs. The force has advised that it will assess the organisational learning and implement control measures around the use of mobile devices.