Lack of dedicated substance misuse team in police custody
National Police Chiefs' Council received 2 coroners' reports about this hazard between 17 Jan 2014 and 15 Apr 2015.
They came from 2 different coroners in 2 coroner areas. A similar concern was raised again 1 time after the first warning.
A published response was found for 1 of the 1 earlier reports, stating 4 specific actions.
The story, report by report
Spacing grows with the time between reports.
“That was no dedicated substance misuse team available to look after Mr [name redacted] when he was in the custody suite at Hatfield Police Station, as there would have been had Mr [name redacted] been detained in prison”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ National Police Chiefs' Council responded, stating 3 specific actions.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
“The responsibility for healthcare in police custody suites will however soon transfer from individual police authorities to NHS England. Healthcare for persons in police custody will therefore be commissioned to NHS standards of care. This should lead to more consistent and improved healthcare standards, by ensuring that the same range and quality of substance misuse services are available to persons in police custody as would be available in prison or community settings.”
“G4S Forensic and Medical Service are responsible for the provision of medical services to Hertfordshire Police as defined in a specific contract written by Hertfordshire Police ("the Contract"), which does not at this time, provide for putting a dedicated substance misuse team into each of the police stations served by the Contract”
1 more stated action in the Promises tab.
- 1 year 3 months later
Raised again · 1st time
Nicholas Rowley↗
15 Apr 2015 · Ian Smith · Stoke-on-Trent & North Staffordshire
Closely relatedConfidence 0.85 · higha different coroner“That training should include targeted training on the risks and dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, including methadone intoxication and alcohol withdrawal, particularly if the detainee is likely to be in custody for upwards of 24 hours.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ National Police Chiefs' Council responded, stating 1 specific action.Response (PDF) ↗
“We feel that this represents a common sense approach, which we would suggest would ensue in the majority of circumstances, therefore we take no issue with incorporating appropriate guidance to this affect as part of the interim review of the Detention and Custody Authorised Professional Practice which is currently ongoing. We anticipate that the updated guidance will be published and available via the College website circa summer 2015.”
Stated timescale: circa summer 2015
- All reports to National Police Chiefs' Council
Each row is one judged link between an earlier and a later report. Open a row to read both quotes, found word for word in the originals.
2014 → 2015Nicholas Rowley1 year 3 months after Wayne Broad · different coronerClosely relatedConfidence 0.85 · high
Closely relatedConfidence 0.85 · highBoth reports address insufficient handling of substance‑misuse issues among detainees in police custody. The earlier report calls for a dedicated substance‑misuse team comparable to prison care, while the later report requests targeted training on drug and alcohol risks.
Wayne Broad · 17 Jan 2014
“That was no dedicated substance misuse team available to look after Mr [name redacted] when he was in the custody suite at Hatfield Police Station, as there would have been had Mr [name redacted] been detained in prison”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Nicholas Rowley · 15 Apr 2015
“That training should include targeted training on the risks and dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, including methadone intoxication and alcohol withdrawal, particularly if the detainee is likely to be in custody for upwards of 24 hours.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Stated action in the response to the earlier report
“The responsibility for healthcare in police custody suites will however soon transfer from individual police authorities to NHS England. Healthcare for persons in police custody will therefore be commissioned to NHS standards of care. This should lead to more consistent and improved healthcare standards, by ensuring that the same range and quality of substance misuse services are available to persons in police custody as would be available in prison or community settings.”
Stated action
“The responsibility for healthcare in police custody suites will however soon transfer from individual police authorities to NHS England. Healthcare for persons in police custody will therefore be commissioned to NHS standards of care. This should lead to more consistent and improved healthcare standards, by ensuring that the same range and quality of substance misuse services are available to persons in police custody as would be available in prison or community settings.”
Stated action
“G4S Forensic and Medical Service are responsible for the provision of medical services to Hertfordshire Police as defined in a specific contract written by Hertfordshire Police ("the Contract"), which does not at this time, provide for putting a dedicated substance misuse team into each of the police stations served by the Contract”
Stated action
“We do however take our duty of care for the welfare of detainees very seriously and provide medical care in custody which effectively triages our detainees to assess that they are fit to be detained and are kept safe.”
Stated action · timescale: circa summer 2015
“We feel that this represents a common sense approach, which we would suggest would ensue in the majority of circumstances, therefore we take no issue with incorporating appropriate guidance to this affect as part of the interim review of the Detention and Custody Authorised Professional Practice which is currently ongoing. We anticipate that the updated guidance will be published and available via the College website circa summer 2015.”
- Each report's concerns were extracted by Nemotron 3 Nano on Nebius Token Factory, each with a quote copied from the report.
- Concerns from reports to National Police Chiefs' Council at least six months apart were compared by meaning (Qwen3 embeddings) and wording (TF-IDF).
- The closest pairs were judged by Nemotron 3 Super with reasoning on. Only identical or closely related, with confidence of at least 0.70, are shown.
- Every quote was checked by code as an exact substring of the original text. Names of staff and family are redacted, and the deceased are named by report title only.
| Link | Meaning | Wording | Judge | Coroner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 → 2015 | 0.71 | 0.06 | Closely related · 0.85 | different |
Judge model: nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b. How Nemotron did the work · Full methodology.
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This shows that a similar concern was raised again after an earlier report. It does not say why, and it is not a finding about any organisation or person. To report an error, see the corrections route.