After approximately two years of effort(!), I have finally managed to update this blog a little, especially as it grows in size. Several years back, I changed the “theme” of it (ie, the look) to freshen it up and it meant many hundreds of different posts and pages were no longer formatted correctly and it looked odd. It was a right old mess, frankly and it became obvious when I looked at the problem it was going to take hundreds of hours to fix! So I pretended it wasn’t an issue. But a couple of years back, I decided to start slowly getting at it, doing a little bit every now and then.
A few weeks ago, I finally reformatted the final dodgy post and they all now work with the software and look correctly set out, with all the hyperlinks in the correct colour, etc., etc.. You will notice if you ever use older posts, that some hyperlinks no longer work because other people’s websites have changed. I was going to try and update the hyperlinks as well, but it quickly apparent I wouldn’t be able to re-find everything I’d previously linked. So I’ve done what I can on that, but it will mean occasional failures of hyperlinks.
We are now getting towards 1,000 published posts along with the various other information pages, links and resources to assist people to navigate this area of public policy business.
The specific recent refresh and additions have affected the following pages in particular –
- The Main Resources page –
- This remains the main way to see the various resources pages and quickly access them.
- It includes includes links to various useful specific posts that I’d think most professionals might find useful, in addition to others.
- The Big Reports page –
- This is where links to various important reports are housed: including thematic inspections, government publications, inquiry reports, as well as police and NHS strategy documents and guidelines.
- It contains links to all of the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s annual reports in to deaths after police contact; and all the Care Quality Commission or Healthcare Inspectorate Wales reports monitoring the Mental Health Act 1983.
- The Preventing Future Deaths page –
- If you now click ‘MENU’ in the top right corner, you’ll see the page is in the blog’s main menu and much easier to access.
- A lot of new PFDs have been added to the page and it therefore began to look cluttered so I’ve cleaned it up by separating off the cases by the year in which someone lost their life.
- I remain extremely interested in the learning that should be occurring from these reports and refreshing this page has just reminded me of how much of it there is and I’m thinking of doing a second PFD page where the reports are groupped according to the organisational or legal issue to which they relate.
- Watch this space for that!
- The Quick Guides page –
- These have always remained under review and were updated in the last few years.
- The Guides were circulated by the College of Policing in 2016 as useful training aides to all police forces and have been kept up to date on this website as the law changed.
- I’ve now added a Quick Guide on Cross Border Returns, because of queries about Scottish patients absconding south and non-Scottish patients absconding north!
Finally, if you ever need to access this stuff as a reference material via a SmartPhone, there is a way of setting up a folder in your phone for ease of access – that is all explained in the post just linked.
Thank you to everyone who continues to read this blog – I really value the comments and emails I receive which show it’s still being read and used. They are the main reason I keep writing when ideas occur and I keep covering the cases which hit the news to highlight how important it still is to keep chipping away at the interface of policing, mental health and criminal justice.
If you want to get in touch with a request for anything specific or for any other reason, see the email me page.
Winner of the President’s Medal,
the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2023
I try to keep this blog up to date, but inevitably over time, amendments to the law as well as court rulings and other findings from inquests and complaints processes mean it is difficult to ensure all the articles and pages remain current. Please ensure you check all legal issues in particular and take appropriate professional advice where necessary.
Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 