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Source · IOPC Learning Case

Recommendation - Metropolitan Police Service, November 2020

Metropolitan Police Service Ref: 2019/123226 Recommended 19 Nov 2020 Response due 14 Jan 2021
Welfare and vulnerable people

View on IOPC website ↗

Case background

Text published by the IOPC.

A witness at a residential address in E17 phoned 999 at 11.45pm on Wednesday 24 July 2019 to report that two men were fighting outside their house. Four police officers attended but decided no police action was necessary. A second witness phoned 999 at 12.05am to report the men had resumed fighting after the police left. Separately, six police officers in a police van driving on Blackhorse Lane were flagged down by a member of the public who reported two men fighting. These officers attended and found one of the men on the floor. He told them he had been drinking but was not drunk, that he had arthritis and was in a lot of pain. Bodyworn video (BWV) footage showed the officers helped him to his feet, then spent approximately ten minutes speaking to the other man during which time the first man complained of pain in his neck. The police officers requested an ambulance then subsequently cancelled it and decided to take the injured man to hospital in their police van. The second man was allowed to leave. BWV footage showed the injured man was unable to remain upright after the police officers belted him into a seat in the police van and was unable to walk once they arrived at hospital. Medical records showed he had a fracture in his spinal cord and an epidural haematoma causing paralysis.

Recommendations and responses

1 indexed

Recommendation 1

Link to recommendation · Accepted

Addressed to: Metropolitan Police Service

Linked bodies: Metropolitan Police Service

IOPC recommendation

The IOPC recommends that the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) should review the spinal injuries topic within its Emergency Life Support (ELS) training for police officers to ensure that scenarios and examples used do not solely focus on motorcycle accidents and injuries.

The IOPC conducted an investigation into allegations that a man with a serious spinal injury was not shown appropriate care and attention by police officers because they did not recognise the extent of his condition, despite it being mentioned (pain in neck, numbness etc) and therefore did not treat man as having a suspected spinal injury. This meant that techniques such as inline immobilisation that they had been trained to undertake were not used. During the investigation, material from the spinal injuries topic of ELS training that all officers undertake on an annual basis was reviewed. This showed that the only scenario used as a teaching tool during training was about how to treat a person involved in a motorcycle accident. If additional examples were given when training officers, their understanding of spinal injuries may increase, along with awareness on when inline immobilisation technique should be used.

Response published by the IOPC

Do you accept the recommendation?

Yes

Accepted action:

The MPS recognises the importance of this recommendation and agrees to take the suggested action in order to enhance its training in this area. We are comfortable that our current approach meets this recommendation in that we do teach other scenarios rather than solely focusing on one type of incident.

ELS refresher training is delivered in three year cycles and the next training cycle dealing with spinal injuries will begin in October 2021. To re-inforce the training already provided, this cycle will introduce a specific mandatory scenario which includes a responsive casualty who has a history indicating a possible spinal injury and who then becomes unresponsive. Training will be aimed at inline stabilisation where any spinal injury is suspected. It will be kept separate from the crash helmet removal session to avoid overlap and confusion.

It will not be possible to introduce this prior to October 2021 as we are currently in COVID recovery and concentrating on priority skills.

Check the original case on the IOPC website