Right Care Right Person Policy
1. Statement of Policy
This policy seeks to clarify when it is appropriate to deploy police resources to incidents concerning the welfare of individuals. In doing so, it also ensures that the determined response is both proportionate and accords with the core responsibilities of the Police in discharging its legal duties. This policy may be supported by ancillary documentation.
2. Aim of Policy
2.1 To ensure that all police officers and staff understand their legal obligations and responsibilities in dealing with reports of concerns for the welfare of individuals, and that decisions made reflect the principles of proportionality and necessity through the execution of such legal duties.
It is important to be robust in ensuring that the Police are not missing critical information that would significantly change the risk assessment. As with all calls for service, the Police risk assessment model THRIVES (Appendix 3) and the National Decision-Making Model (NDM) will be applied.
2.2 The Code of Ethics published in 2024 by the College of Policing requires the Police to do the right thing in the right way. It also recognises that the use of discretion in policing is necessary, however, in using discretion, it states that officers/staff should, "take into account any relevant policing codes, guidance, policies and procedures into consideration." All officers and staff must be aware of the content of the Code of Ethics 2024.
2.3 The Right Care Right Person (RCRP) policy will enable personnel within the Force Communications Centre (FCC) to understand the specific concerns made by callers, specifically those that relate to calls for welfare. This will ensure that the right decision is taken as regards police attendance, or, whether the ‘duty of care’ should more appropriately be adopted by another partner agency.
3. Policy Scope
3.1 RCRP is a College of Policing (CoP) supported national framework which aims to ensure individuals get the right support from the right emergency services and partner agencies in providing them with the best care for their circumstance or situation. RCRP recognises that:
- People in crisis deserve the best possible service and the Police are not always the correct agency to deliver that service.
- Not all welfare calls to the Police trigger a legal obligation to act. In many circumstances the Police do not have to accept a duty of care, however, it is of critical importance to recognise if the Police do accept a duty of care then they must respond.
3.2 The terms ‘Welfare check’, ‘Well-being’, ‘Concern for Welfare’, or ‘Wellness check’, are to be considered the same for the purposes of this policy.
4. Powers and Policy/Legal Requirements
4.1 The legal basis for this guidance is our responsibility under the following:
- Human Rights Act 1998/European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)
- PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence) Act 1984 – Section 17 and Syed v DPP [2010]
- Section 3 Criminal Law Act 1976
- Section 117 PACE Act 1984
- Common Law
- Mental Health Act 1983
- Mental Capacity Act 2005
- Children Act 1989
- Children Act 2004
- Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 and Part 7
- Crime and Disorder Act 1998
- Equality Act 2010
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated Regulations
- Data Protection Act 2018
- Freedom of Information Act 2000
- Police Reform Act 2002
4.2 Other relevant Policy & Procedures
- FCC P-Safety Policy
- FCC Graded Response and Deployment Policy
- DPP Threat to Life Policy
- DPP Missing Persons Policy
- Missing Persons – CoP APP
- DPP Vulnerability Policy
- Child Abuse and Child Protection Policy
- DPP Adult Protection Policy
- NPCC National Strategy on Mental Health
- Social Services and Wellbeing Act (Wales) 2014
Accessible at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2014/4/contents
- Social Services and Wellbeing Act (Wales) 2014
Part 7 - Duty to Report Children at Risk- Accessible at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2014/4/part/7/crossheading/children-at-risk
- Wales Safeguarding Procedures
Accessible at: https://safeguarding.wales/en/
- NPCC RCRP/ COP Guidance Implementing Children’s Principles – 14th June 2024
Accessible at: https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/right-care-right-person-toolkit/implementation-principles-incidents-involving-children
5. Options and Contingencies
The Police Service is being contacted by partner agencies and members of the public to carry out a welfare check on a person who they are concerned for. Often such calls are made in the belief that the Police are the appropriate agency and responsible/liable for the welfare of the individual concerned. The Police do not generally carry out a duty of care at coomon law to protect individuals from harm by themselves or others.
The Police will carry a duty of care to protect persons from harm wher the Police have assumed responsibilty to care for them, or where the Police have created (directly or indirectly) the risk of harm.
The Police have a responsibility to take reasonable steps to assist where there is a real and immedicate risk to the life of a person, or a real and immediate risk of that person being subject to serious harm or other imhumane treatment. The risk of harm where a duty will arise on the Police to discharge will generally, but not always, arise from the criminal acts of a third party.
This policy will provide clarity to the Police and its partners on when a concern for welfare request will, and will not, become a police responsibility to respond. The legal duties of care and liabilities cannot be passed to the Police unless they accept that responsibility. In such cases where responsibility is not accepted the duty of care will remain with the partner agency or individual concerned.
This policy does not seek to avid the responsibility of the Police in dealing with core policing matters. The core roles of the Police are outlined below, and any concern for a welfare request that includes one of the following elements will be considered appropriate for police action in rsponding to the reported matter:
- Common Law Policing Powers
- Prevention and Investigation of Crime
- To keep the King's Peace
A concern for welfare request can also be initiated by a member of the public and the policy makes it clear that where an individual is unable, due to circumstances beyond their control, to carry out such a check, or seek support from an agency who could do so, the Police will evaluate the request for assistance and respond accordingly should there be a risk or threart to life evident in the report.
6. Roles and Responsibilities for the Force Communications Centre (FCC)
6.1 FCC Roles
The following roles and responsibilities will be undertaken by key personnel within the FCC as detailed below:
FCC Operators: Upon receipt of a concern for welfare call, the FCC Operator will create a Command-and-Control incident log (called STORM), record full details. A risk assessment will be undertaken using THRIVES (Threat, Harm, Risk, Investigation, Vulnerability, Engagement and Safeguarding), the NDM (National Decision Model), and intelligence checks to determine the threat, risk and harm presented in the call. A decision will be taken as to whether police accept responsibility or not. If responsibility has been accepted, deployment will be within the Graded Response Policy (Grade 1 – 20 minutes, Grade 2 – 60 minutes and Grade 3 – 24 to 72 hours).
FCC Supervisors: Ongoing supervision of all RCRP calls will be provided by supervisors who will provide advice and guidance to staff where needed. Supervisors will also intervene on those instances where RCRP calls need to be escalated based on the insistence of the caller for police attendance. Supervisors will also review all RCRP calls during their shift for compliance with this policy and as part of the established QA (Quality Assurance) process.
Force Incident Managers (FIMs): FIMs (Police Inspectors) will review all RCRP STORM logs to ensure the appropriate levels of deployment exist within the incidents reported to mitigate threat, risk and harm and to assess compliance with the RCRP policy. The ongoing review throughout the FIM’s shift will include all priority/graded 1, 2, 3 incidents as well as grade 4 (resolution without deployment) concerns for welfare RCRP incidents.
The FIM will assume overall responsibility of the management of incidents concerning RCRP and will intervene as required to ensure compliance with the RCRP policy.
Feedback to staff via their supervisors will feature as part of the overall management and QA review of the incidents, with the aim of developing learning from dynamic and structured reviews undertaken as part of the working shift.
6.2 Information
The terms ‘Welfare check’, ‘Well-being’, ‘Concern for Welfare’, or ‘Wellness check’, are to be considered the same for the purposes of this policy.
Accepting the above terms used, it is understood that such concerns are made directly or indirectly to the Police with a high degree of expectation that the Police will deal with the individual reported as being the subject of concern by checking on that person’s welfare to minimise any apparent risk posed to them.
6.3 Implementing the Policy – Triggers and Considerations for the Deployment of Officers/Staff
6.3.1 In order to continue to respond appropriately to calls that warrant police attention, a robust and timely triage system will be adopted to clearly identify such calls. All requests for police attendance will be subject to the following considerations for police intervention:
- Is there a real and immediate risk to life or serious harm to an identified person(s)?
- Is it a medical emergency?
- Is a child at risk of significant harm?
- Does the person have a mental health problem (Sect.135/136 MHA 1983)?
- Is the individual of concern ‘Absent Without Leave’ (AWOL) or a ‘Restricted Patient’?
- Has a crime been committed?
- Is this a missing person report?
A detailed description of the direction provided to the FCC Staff in dealing with the above triggers and considerations can be found in the FCC RCRP Guidance and associated training FCC documents.
7. Partner Agency or Member of the Public Requesting a Concern for Welfare Check
7.1 Call for Service from a Partner Agency/Statutory Body:
A call for service from a partner agency may indicate that the duty of care for the individual concerned remains with that partner agency’s remit. If so, the Police will not interfere with that assumption of responsibility. It is expected that the relevant partner agency will take all the necessary steps to ensure the care and welfare of the individual is provided for. An inability to carry out a welfare check by the reporting partner agency does not make the situation a police matter and in these circumstances the Police will not attend. This situation will need to be fully recorded on the STORM Log.
There are a range of non-health partners who may be unable to carry out a concern for welfare check and in these circumstances the Police will consider all the information available before deciding whether there is a need for police intervention.
If the obligation for the Police to attend is not met, the partner agency will be informed that the Police will not be attending. They will need to be advised to call back immediately should more information become available in a way that changes the situation, this requiring the Police to re-evaluate their decision based on the new threat, risk and harm factors reported.
It is important to place the responsibility onto the partner agencies to bring relevant information to the attention of the Police.
The CoP RCRP Guidance points out that where partner agencies call the Police for assistance, these calls must not be incorrectly identified as RCRP related. This is due to the fact that the Police are not being asked to lead or respond directly to these incidents in place of the appropriate service. More so, such calls seek Police assistance to appropriately support the partner agency. The COP emphasizes the point made, that supporting our partner agencies is the right thing to do in many of these situations, despite there being the lack of a legal duty to respond. Assuredly, the support provided will be governed by the availability of resources at any given time and the level of committed engagement in terms of numbers and time allocation, with these matters being determined by the FCC Supervisors (Dispatch/Operations Room) and/or FIM.
The Police response to concern for welfare-related calls is subject to local partnership agreements that the Police have agreed to. The Police may agree to work in collaboration with partners to provide a particular service at a local level. This may differ in different LPAs subject to localised agreements.
7.2 Call from a Member of the Public Requesting a Concern for Welfare Check.
It is important to recognise and distinguish between a general member of the public and a family member who call police for assistance or express concerns for a person.
The caller may be a Good Samaritan or well-meaning member of the public acting in good faith or exercising their public-spirited duty. It is of the utmost importance to maintain trust and confidence in the ability of the Police to meet their needs and to be seen as sympathetic and engaged with our communities.
In the first instance the Police will establish all the facts, so far as possible, from the caller and consider if another partner agency is better placed to give support and assistance. If so, the caller will be signposted to that partner agency and given sufficient information and contact details to do so themselves. If, due to circumstances beyond their control, the caller is unable to gain support from a partner agency and they are unable to do their own concern for welfare check, the Police may take on that responsibility. Whether the Police do take on that responsibility will depend on the facts known at that time.
In such circumstances the Police will create a ‘Command and Control’ incident log and grade the incident dependent upon the risk assessment (THRIVES) for dispatch purposes, so as to ensure the correct resource is applied to the incident in the most appropriate way. The caller will be informed that the Police will be attending to carry out a concern for welfare check and report back to them their findings.
8. RCRP and Children
Whilst the RCRP covers children, special care is required when assessing the risks as they are usually vulnerable thereby special concern must be exercised to ensure child’s best interests are protected. FCC Operators will, in most circumstances, deploy officers to welfare calls involving children to enable the best interest of a child to be met. All such calls will require a dynamic review by the FCC Supervisor and FIM to ensure that the safeguarding of children is maintained.
Where there is a real and immediate risk to the life of a child or of other serious harm, attendance is mandatory.
9. AWOL
Absent without leave (AWOL) can apply to anyone detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 if they escape hospital or fail to return following authorised leave – including restricted patients.
Hospitals are responsible for locating patients who are AWOL and maintain a duty of care but may request police assistance to search for the patient if they are particularly vulnerable or dangerous.
Police should consider whether it's more appropriate to record the patient as AWOL, wanted or a missing person. Recording an AWOL patient as a missing person may be justified if:
- there are any suspicious circumstances.
- the patient is vulnerable.
The Health Care facility have statutory actions to carry out prior to any escalation to Police. RCRP Principles state that Police will only attend if the AWOL patient is in a life at risk situation (ECHR2) or at risk from serious harm (ECHR3) or the individual is subject to Section 18 (MHA).
- Healthcare Walk Out
When someone walks out of a healthcare facility the ‘duty of care’ remains with the hospital/surgery/medical facility. Under the RCRP Framework the Police do not carry out welfare checks on people that have recently been a medical patient unless there is an ‘immediate risk to life’ or the patient is at ‘immediate risk of serious harm’.
- Incident Transfer – To / From Another Force or Agency
This policy adopts the national position in relation to incident transfer, be that to or from another force/agency, as outlined below.
Police Forces that receive a call relating to another Force Area should not directly apply the RCRP criteria. This is important as different Force Areas and their partners may have different services and agreements in place in how they respond to specific calls, which may not be known by the Force taking the report.
In these situations, the receiving Police Force should obtain full information and pass to the Force where the incident occurred as they usually would. The main difference is that the receiving Police Force must make it clear that their role is to simply pass the information to the relevant Force who will decide any response. The caller must not be left with the perception that they will be receiving any specific response but rather they will be contacted and advised by the Police Force where the incident took place.
Forces that are passed a call from another Police Force, who have taken the original report, should accept the report and apply RCRP as they usually would. The receiving Force should not push-back to the reporting force where the call falls within RCRP and instead establish contact the original caller, advising them directly as to any response they may provide or signpost to alternative services as appropriate.
There are specific agreements in place for a number of agencies such as Interpol, Crimestoppers, Action Fraud, who act on behalf of UK Police Forces in receiving reports. As such, these agencies do not have any ability to signpost to other agencies or make enquiries themselves.
12. Take Action and Review
RCRP will form part of the well-established QA process within the FCC, with such call reviews being undertaken to ensure compliance with this policy.
This policy will be reviewed on a 6-monthly basis.
Compliance of the policy and related guidance will be monitored through:
- Robust supervision
- FIM oversight
- Quality Assurance
- Themed reviews undertaken by the FCC Performance Agenda
- Death or Serious Injury (DSI) Cases and Referrals to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)
The Force has a statutory obligation (under the Police Reform Act 2002) to refer to the IOPC all DSI matters. The responsibility for submitting these referrals sits with the Professional Standards Department (PSD).
A DSI matter is defined as any circumstances (unless the circumstances are or have been the subject of a complaint or amount to a conduct matter) in, or as a result of which, a person has died or sustained serious injury and:
- At the time of death or serious injury the person had been arrested by a person serving with the police and had not been released or was otherwise detained in the custody of a person serving with the police; or
- At or before the time of death or serious injury the person had contact of any kind – whether direct or indirect – with a person serving with the police who was acting in the execution of their duties and there is an indication that the contact may have caused – whether directly or indirectly – or contributed to the death or serious injury. However, this sub-category excludes contact that a person who suffered the death or serious injury had whilst they were acting in the execution of their duties as a person serving with the police.
The term ‘Serious injury’ means a fracture, a deep cut, a deep laceration or an injury causing damage to an internal organ or the impairment of any bodily function.
It is important that any matter that may amount to a DSI matter is brought to the attention of the Professional Standards Department (PSD) so that an initial assessment can be undertaken in order to determine whether it meets the definition of a DSI and consequently whether it needs to be referred to the IOPC.
Whether or not a DSI matter requires an urgent referral is dependent on the circumstances. For example, an IOPC DSI referral may need to be made immediately and without delay if there has been a death following direct police contact and there is a live evidential scene. As such, in more urgent cases, contact should be made with PSD immediately, utilising the PSD staff on call function if necessary (as referrals to the IOPC can be made outside of office hours). In any event, DSI matters should be brought to the attention of PSD no later than the next working day.
It will be the responsibility of the on-duty Force Incident Manager (FIM) to assess and review the need to refer such incidents to PSD for the attention of the IOPC.
Of importance, it should be noted that even when a decision is made not to deploy police resources to concern for safety calls within the guidelines of the RCRP policy, an IOPC referral will still be made if the referral criteria for DSI cases are met.
CODE OF ETHICS CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
This policy has been drafted in accordance with the Code of Ethics and has been reviewed on the basis of its content and the supporting evidence and it is deemed compliant with that Code and the principles underpinning it.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACT CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
This policy has been drafted in accordance with the Human Rights Act and has been reviewed on the basis of its content and the supporting evidence and it is deemed compliant with that Act and the principles underpinning it.
EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010 sets out the protected characteristics that qualify for protection under the Act as follows: Age; Disability; Gender Reassignment; Marriage and Civil Partnership; Pregnancy and Maternity; Race; Religion or Belief; Sex; Sexual Orientation.
The public sector equality duty places a proactive legal requirement on public bodies to have regard, in the exercise of their functions, to the need to:
- eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation, and any other conduct that is unlawful under the Act;
- advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it;
- foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.
The equality duty applies to all protected characteristics with the exception of Marriage and Civil Partnership, to which only the duty to have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination applies.
Carrying out an equality impact assessment involves systematically assessing the likely or actual effects of policies on people in respect of all the protected characteristics set out above. An equality impact assessment should be carried out on any policy that is relevant to the public sector equality duty.
EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT COMPLETED: August 2024