Final Phase Of Right Care, Right Person

Right Care, Right Person helps get people the right support and allows officers to do their core job and not be “the jack of all trades”, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

The final phase of Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) launched in South Yorkshire on 23 October, with the aim of protecting vulnerable people who need support for mental health-related incidents. Meanwhile police officers can use their time better to tackle crime and support victims.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: “It’s massively important that officers are able to get on with the job they should be doing. When I go out and speak to officers across the force, some of them are noticing the impact this is having. It sounds like a lot of the local authorities are trying to now work with us after initial resistance on this.”

He continued: “There has been a bit of a shock to the system in terms of people’s expectations on what policing should and shouldn’t be doing. This has got to carry on and we need to make sure that it’s embedded, otherwise we’ll slip back into old habits of saying yes to everything. The police tend to do that. We tend to just say, ‘Yeah, we’ll deal with this, we’ll deal with that’.

“You still see examples in our force of instances that slip through the net, where it’s firmly a social care or NHS matter but it’s coming to the police and we’re sending officers out there. As a result of that, our ability to deal with our core role is reduced. Then we see articles about the police not doing enough for burglaries. Well, you wonder why, when we’re the jack of all trades.

“We’ve got to continue with this one and we’ve got to be brave, because a lot of the public would be shocked at some of the incidents that we go to.

“What Right Care, Right Person does is it gives officers the confidence – because it’s backed with really sound legal advice – to say, ‘No, we’re following legal advice and legal guidelines here’. Senior managers are paid to make decisions and they should be making decisions. The flip side of that is, they should then be supported by the organisation when they do make their decisions.”