A SUICIDAL woman who was left naked in a police cell block full of male officers has sparked calls for health boards to do more to help distressed detainees.
The woman was found whimpering in a cell in Elgin with nothing but a blanket by an independent custody visitor, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) force watchdog has heard.
Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, Police Scotland’s most senior operational officer, said the woman was clearly in need of medical attention and should not have been detained in a cell.
However, NHS Grampian is often reluctant to help police with drugged, drunk, injured or suicidal detainees, custody visitor Sue Pyle told the SPA at a meeting in Dundee.
A lack of female officers in Fraserburgh means detainees face a two hour round trip to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for intimate searches, but when they get there NHS Grampian “are not always forthcoming with a female nurse to administer the procedure”, Ms Pyle said.
“One of the most ongoing issues is the fact of healthcare in Aberdeen as it is not deemed appropriate to hire a nurse there,” she said.
A high proportion of detainees in Aberdeen are “drugged, drunk, sleeping it off, and some have been on a fight”, while about a third have had medical attention or are awaiting a doctor, Ms Pyle added.
Police in Fraserburgh who request medical assistance “are permanently put to the bottom of the queue because they are the police and the doctors have got more important things to do”, so they are forced to make a two hour round trip to Aberdeen to seek medical assistance, she said.
She added: “There is not always a female officer on site – to go to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, do a search or a forensic examination – and Grampian Health Board, I gather, are not always forthcoming with a female nurse to administer the procedure.”
Ms Pyle said she found a woman who “had not done anything drastic, but she was arrested and she had been offered an anti-harm suit because she was suicidal”.
“She declined to wear the anti-harm suit and she was lying in the cell, against the door, with her head tucked neatly up against the toilet whimpering, and there she would stay,” she said.
She added: “I don’t think there is a mechanism for dealing appropriately with these people… there was not a female in Elgin at the time, and you have a naked lady with a blanket, where do you go?”
DCC Livingstone said he was “delighted” to hear Ms Pyle’s evidence.
“It tells us, and it tells our partners beyond policing, of some of the risks and some of the needs that currently police officers and police staff are dealing with which are really matters of health care,” he said.
“The joint board between health and justice, recently established, has three key priorities and one of them is to deal with people with mental health and distress.
“The individual who was in police custody may not have been diagnosed as having mental health issues, but they are quite clearly in distress and a police cell is not a place where that person should be for their needs, not only for that individual but for the people who are trying to their very best to provide them custody and care.”
He added: “All those issues (Sue) talked about is the provision of healthcare, and that is a matter for the health boards and the health authorities to do. That is acknowledged at a senior level.”
An NHS Grampian spokesman said: “We work alongside the police to deliver healthcare to people in custody and take those responsibilities extremely seriously.
“We are currently developing a comprehensive action plan in partnership with local police to improve healthcare access for those in custody and are actively working to recruit additional staff to support those efforts.”
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