Every New Year’s day I think about the birthday I will have NEXT year – ie, 2027. I’m born quite late in the year, so it always makes me realise how old I’m getting to have to contemplate the sentence “Next year I’m X-yrs old!” Not that’s it’s any of your business, but it’s fifty-three, if you really must know. Before that, however, we have the reality of 2026 to get through and goodness knows what that’s going to throw at me and / or us.
I said before Christmas, there will probably be a bit less blogging this year.
I have been trying to keep up a weekly post all throughout 2025 and I’ve certainly more-than-averaged that, but I began the year with a number of completed posts ready to go and with various drafts which I eventually managed to finish off, but I start 2026 with depleted stocks.
I’m going to schedule the posts I do for fortnightly intervals from the 7th January – Wednesday mornings as normal, but only where I’ve something worth publishing. If events then justify anything else off-schedule, fair enough but I need to spend more evenings writing other things, which are more important in the short and long term.
ENOUGH RCRP
There’s another reality: all that seems to come up now, is stuff related to Right Care, Right Person and it’s already at the point where there’s not much left to say beyond commentary on any incidents or inquests which come up, linked to it. It’s the only thing I get emails about, it’s the only thing I’m asked to talk about in presentations or training and of course, such is its dominance, that my PhD focus has now skewed towards it, because it’s increasingly important in the discussion about my overall topic:
Mental health police contact deaths.
So I don’t intend to keep blogging about this to the same degree, not least because I have a lot of writing to do on my PhD about all this and that needs a different kind of focus. It’s easy enough to sit down and get annoyed on a blog post about events I can quickly and easily comment upon based on years of experience and perspective – it’s quite another to put together 80,000 words of proper academic writing, where I’m wrestling with abstract, philosophical and theoretical ideas I struggle to wrap my head around to frame what I’m finding in analysis of my actual data.
- Epistemic injustice / critical realism / social harm theory, not that you asked.
- 302 MH-PCDs, leading to 154 PFDs so far, with 35 of those inquests yet to complete so no doubt more PFDs are coming from those.
- 21 of those completed inquests are RCRP related, I have 2 other inquests which I’m yet to fully identify and 12 incidents yet to reach the inquest stage which I suspect will be found to be relevant to RCRP.
- That’s rather a lot to be going on with, given the programme only started rolling out (without evaluation) in 2022/3.
- And they are telling us something new.
I know plenty of police officers disagree with me about this programme – and that’s fine, we’re all allowed opinions on things, including me. What I’m finding however, is officers giving it the overwhelmingly positive response are doing so with two main qualifications to bear in mind –
- They’re grateful to be seeing less mental health related work – and I can assure you and them: I get it – I really do.
- “Too much mental health related work” is mostly why I became interested in this topic to start with, but you do eventually have to realise that’s a little simplistic.
- Too much of some MH stuff, yes – and too little of the rest.
- Many seem simply unaware of how and where things have gone wrong with this approach and don’t seem aware of how many howlingly bad decisions are being taken during incidents which fortunately did not go awry and should be considered a “near-miss”.
I have had a few emails this year from officers taking me to task for my “negative attitude” towards it – all views welcome. This included one email where an inspector gave me an example of why it’s a good thing overall. Unfortunately for him, he got the law wrong in the scenario he chose to use where he’d pushed back and said “No!” to something where I really believe he should have said “Yes!”. I can only hope his luck meant he didn’t find himself at an inquest or inquiry explaining the error.
MY GOALS
I’ve annoyed myself in a few ways, last couple of years so although I cynically “took the Michael” in naming this post, there is something of a determination for “New Year, new me” type thing at this end and I’m writing down here so anyone who cares can nag or ask how I’m getting on! –
- Cycling – need to get it back on track, after two completely rubbish years: I’m setting myself a 100-mile a week target which is perfectly do-able and when I did that for 2020, I smashed it doing little and often. Cycling to work each day helped and I don’t have an everyday job to cycle to, but I will be cycling one day a week to Worcester for work, so that’s 30-miles sorted right there.
- Weight loss – see above, re: cycling! Starting all over again, almost where I was in 2019, which cycling really helped me smash and I was in great shape by August 2019 when I did the Ride London thing so no reason why I can’t repeat that, just need to shift my arse and have a concerted effort over six-to-twelve months to eat less and move more!
- PhD – have to have my overall concept mapped out by mid-2026 for my annual review. By then, I’ll be 18-months in to a 6yr programme, so it’s right I should be clear about what I’m doing and the main task will be to have a coherent plan my supervisors have asked for which links up theory, methods, ethics, literature review stuff, etc. Going to ring-fence two days a week for PhD work in 2026.
That’s quite enough to be getting on with, not least because I’ll be lecturing at UoW until at least the summer and hopefully for years to come! We’ll have to see how that goes, too as I’m really enjoying it and hoping to continue.
Happy New Years, folks – hope it’s a good one for you!
.
Michael./
Awarded the President’s Medal, by
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, 2026
I am not a police officer.
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 