Lesley Higginson was 72 years old when she died at her home in January 2026. The publication today of a Preventing Future Deaths report means this is the 24th PFD notice which links to the Right Care, Right Person programme and it is sufficiently similar to certain others we’ve seen. Yet still we are exposing the same, ongoing problems. RCRP does not extinguish missing-person responsibilities and this is not the first case which, in my view, confuses “welfare” and “missing”.
The first thing to clarify here is the PFD notice itself is not sent to Cheshire Police. The second important thing is the Coroner appears silent on the topic of whether any previous or other arrangements would have made any difference to the outcome in this sad case – which raises questions. The PFD has only been sent to the North-West Ambulance Service and their response is already uploaded and worth reading if you want detail.
RCRP was formalised as a national programme in July 2023 in the National Partnership Agreement and we know from this PFD that Cheshire Police introduced the programme locally in January 2024, two years before Mrs Higginson’s death. Those familiar with the programme will remember the first aspect of it to be rolled out in most areas was the police decision not to attend requests for a “welfare check”, unless the RCRP threshold was met – an immediate risk to life or risk of serious harm.
The NWAS response to the Coroner shows they introduced their own organisational “concern for welfare” policy, something I’ve known about for a while and they did this precisely to deal with an uplift in ‘welfare’ related calls which were deflected to them by police forces in the north-west. This is something we also learned detail about from the London Ambulance Service after the Metropolitan Police did something very similar, transferring around 250 calls a day in addition to whatever they previously transferred. It was an obvious step for NWAS to take after RCRP led to an unknown number of 999 calls being directed to them.
GAP ANALYSIS
Here’s the crux of things and they are not being highlighted for the first time in this particular case.
- The police unilaterally decided to restructure their approach to welfare checks, in accordance with the legal frameworks (ie, the threshold), limited to A2/A3 duties – much more on that in a moment so keep this thought in mind.
- The ambulance service then decided to reinforce its own boundaries to remind the police and others they will not deploy a yellow truck with skilled paramedics to a location where there is no confirmed patient or no confirmed medical need.
This approach by both 999 agencies fails to ensure that somebody is responding in situations where somebody must, because both bullet-pointed policy positions were unilateral. It fails ensure a systemic safety net for the vulnerable.
So where does this leave us in terms of gaps?
Well, if you are someone for whom genuine concerns have emerged, but where the police believed (rightly or wrongly) their RCRP ‘threshold’ was not met and you are not confirmed by someone to be at a particular location, it’s conceivable the UK state will not respond. Everybody thinks somebody else will or should do it – in reality, anyone could do it, but our problem is that nobody did. We also saw this particular problem last year in Sussex on a Dispatches programme, thankfully one without a fatal ending.
You fall in to a gap created by organisations unilaterally deciding where their boundaries are and senior leaders allowing those boundaries to persist even thought it should be clear – let’s be frank, it should be obvious! – those gaps exist and vulnerable will eventually fall in to them. It becomes completely unedifying to then have a situation like this where neither Cheshire Police nor NWAS seem to have been interested parties at the inquest, yet the conditions exist because of what they’ve both decided are the rules of the game they’re playing.
I use the word ‘game’ deliberately.
THE LAW
I want to nudge the legal thinking here, as well, such as it is – whether we’re talking about the police or the ambulance service.
At the heart of Right Care, Right Person is the threshold-driven idea there is a duty owed by the police only where there is an arguable Article 2 or Article 3 obligation. Remember what that means: article 2 is the right to life and more has been written about A2 than A3 because of the judgment in the Rabone case from which we get the definition of an immediate risk to life. It’s worth restating the definition because of the point I want to make about Article 3 (the right not to suffer inhumane or degrading treatment) –
A “real and immediate”, “substantial or significant risk”, which is “present and continuing risk”, not “remote or fanciful”.
We know from Rabone that a 5-20% risk of suicide is sufficient for an A2 duty to be engaged – such a low figure is still enough to amount to “substantial and significant”. Paragraphs 33-38 really are worth reading in full and for Article 3, based on a few stated cases (Osman / Renolde), A3 can be summarised in very similar terms –
“A real and immediate risk of serious harm — not necessarily life‑threatening, but serious enough to amount to inhuman or degrading treatment.”
So where does that leave us for A3 risks and how should we think about that for Mrs Higginson? Well, the PFD doesn’t get in to that detail, but given the extent to which we seem to have potential for vulnerable people to fall in to these unilaterally imposed gaps in state response, without the state’s obligation being discharged, I thought I’d go there.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Mrs Higginson was a 72yr old woman living in her own home and due to her preference not to be attended by carers several times a day, an arrangement had been commissioned to ensure “medication management” (ie, delivery) and remote welfare checks (ie, phone calls during the day).
- Tuesday 13th January 2026 –
- A medication safe had been installed in her home and remotely controlled computer to assist in medication management.
- Friday 16th –
- she had not answered calls leading to someone being dispatched to her address and she was seen by them.
- Saturday 17th –
- No contact by her with the medication team. Their policy was to arrange a visit after 24hrs of no contact, due to take place on the Sunday.
- Due to no contact with the organisation who rang her each day, they asked a neighbour to check on her but the neighbour could not establish contact with her.
- This resulted in phone calls to the emergency services –
- Cheshire Police declined to attend – RCRP threshold not met.
- NWAS initially agreed to attend, but a review of this led to them ringing back to state they would not do so due to their own policies.
- By this point, she was uncontactable, known to be medically vulnerable and her location was unknown – yet no agency agreed to attend.
- Sunday 18th –
- Mrs Higginson was again uncontactable and after the neighbour was again asked to check, it led to confirmation a “foot” could be seen through the window and this led to a further call to NWAS who dispatched a crew.
- They arranged for the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) to force entry to the premises and Mrs Higginson was found deceased.
So, what is the threshold for believing there is a “risk of serious harm” for the purposes of A3 ECHR?
Well, there are a few cases relevant to A3, but amongst them is Osman v UK and Genolde v France. Although both are known as A2 cases, they are actually A2 and A3, cases and the operational duty for A3 is broadly similar, as above. “Real and immediate risk”, etc. it’s just the risk threshold which differs. A2 is about risk to life, A3 is about risk of serious harm (or inhumane / degrading treatment).
WAS SHE MISSING?
So when I read the sorry tale of Mrs Higginson, and well before I became quite frustrated at the part where two state agencies are unilaterally inflicting their view of the world on each other and the rest of us, I was thinking about whether she was missing and whether A3 duties would have been thought engaged, if the full circumstances had been known by the asking of relevant questions.
I ask this both of NWAS and of Cheshire Police – because both were called on Saturday 17th January.
How many questions did Cheshire Police and NWAS ask on the Saturday about the full context, about the nature or degree of risk in this case, precisely to allow as informed a decision as possible about Article 3 ECHR? – remember: we know from legal advice, the duty around A2/3 does not sit with one particular agency in a given circumstance, it sits with the UK state as a whole and in assessing whether their legal duties are engaged, the agencies are expected not only to listen to the content of the call, but to undertake their own background checks, where possible and to engage other agencies where necessary. Both agencies appear to have made decisions based solely on their own organisational thresholds, not on the full, factual context and there is no evidence in the PFD they spoken to each other or shared information.
We now know it took until the Sunday for any 999 agency to force entry to the premises when it may be argued there was a duty to consider Mrs Higginson missing on the Saturday and then react accordingly. Who is to say what would have happened if any of them had attended and I’m not too bothered, ultimately, whether it would be the police under the guise of a missing person’s inquiry, or the ambulance service because it was thought likely to be a healthcare situation, which it very obviously was.
A STATE OBLIGATION
And I’m not interested either, in arguments about 17 PACE as a power of entry. Yes there are problems with forcing entry for welfare checks, but if we accept the argument (and I anticipate not everyone will), that this was an A3 situation, then s17 PACE grounds would exist.
But Mrs Higginson deserved someone to respond without undue delay and all I read in the PFD report, was the United Kingdom was too busy arguing about unilateral organisational thresholds, senior managers aren’t talking to each other enough to avoid predictable gaps emerging (not for the first time, either) and the Coroner hasn’t massively looked in to all of this for us, hence the PFD leaving lots of unanswered question about matters of concern which could give rise to future deaths, literally the point of a PFD notice.
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the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
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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
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