Police officers minding prisoners in A&E

[Shooter McGavin]

I had a visit to A&E at Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading last Friday night, nothing too serious, but I was there for 8hrs from midnight to 8am.

During this time two blokes came in who were under arrest.

Bloke A: middle-aged, middle-class sort of bloke who had been nicked for assault, but had been headbutted in the incident causing him to be there, resulting in two of his teeth going through his lip, he needed some stiches and looked/sounded embarrassed to be there.

Bloke B: young career criminal. He came in kicking and screaming, effing and jeffing and generally being a feral ratboy. He gave anyone who would listen his life story of how he had grown up in care, the system hated him and he hated the system. He'd been arrested during an attempted burglary and in the process of trying to escape one of the arresting officers had landed on his leg, giving him a very badly sprained ankle. He couldn't put any weight on it, couldn't run off, but obviously needed minding.

Each of these blokes had THREE police officers minding them for the entirety of my eight hours there. Six coppers totally taken out of action just to sit there doing nothing.

At 6am they had to do a shift change, so two new sets of three officers per prisoner came in, did a handover and sat with them until they were seen.

Is this normal? Three coppers per prisoner? It just seems an insane use of scarce resources, those officers tied up for what amounted to most of their shift just sat there looking at their phones.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Obviously they need someone to detain them and whilst nobody likes to be queue-jumped, I would almost rather these people were quietly bussed in via the back door, seen quickly (obviously not before people in great pain or dying) and bussed out again so that the officers could get on with their job.

I know there are a few serving officers on here. Is it a frustration? What's the longest you've spent there babysitting a prisoner?

[MissChief]

I was in A&E a couple of years ago for around the same time as you and it was only two officers per patient but much like you they were in there for hours, and then the shift changed. In total throughout my time there, around 6 hours, I saw 12 different Police officers. The A&E was in a largish town in central Scotland so I could easily imagine more police were at the hospital than out and about responding to crimes. Three per prisoner/patient does seem excessive when surely two will suffice.

[Tony1963]

I wonder whether it comes down to giving feral ratboys absolutely no doubt that they’ll lose if they kick off? One coked-up thicko can be a real handful for two officers to contain without risk to themselves, but with three it’s usually over quite quickly.

Perhaps it’s time for hospitals to have detention cells, so the same three officers can be used with multiple oxygen thieves?

[Earthdweller]

And that iIS absolutely normal

And those six officers were probably half of all those available on duty in Reading

There would also probably be some standing guarding scenes or guarding prisoners on cell watch

One of the longest that I can recall was a six day "poo watch" !

A prisoner transferred to a station about 30 miles away that had a transparent toilet and two officers sat and watched and waited with shift changes until ....

6 feckin days he held it !

But yes it's the norm, shifts come on duty and almost immediately most are abstracted for scenes/prisoner guard/prisoner processing leaving just a couple to actually respond to 999 calls

[XCP]

I had a 136 in my cells, who was so violent that it took 4 officers to restrain him. It was exhausting work, so each team did an hour each, before being relieved by another 4.

He was there at least 8 hours.

[The Gauge]

Year sago it used to be one cop on there own, minding them. Made it impossible for that cop to go to the toilet for the whole day.

It changed to two cops, meaning one can go to the toilet, and when the prisoner kicked off or tried to escape, two cops are better than one.

Consider that the patients there could be classed as vulnerable, and staffing and nursing is disrupted when they kick off.

Three is news to me, but maybe its changed so that when one goes to the toilet, there are still two to deal with them kicking off?

For the cops doing the minding, they cant get on with there normal work whilst minding, everyone sufferes.

[SydneyBridge]

My mum was in Royal Berks A & E on tues evening, she said there were loads of policemen as well. No beds anywhere either..

[Richard-D]

Shooter McGavin said:

Each of these blokes had THREE police officers minding them for the entirety of my eight hours there. Six coppers totally taken out of action just to sit there doing nothing.

At 6am they had to do a shift change, so two new sets of three officers per prisoner came in, did a handover and sat with them until they were seen.

Is this normal? Three coppers per prisoner? It just seems an insane use of scarce resources, those officers tied up for what amounted to most of their shift just sat there looking at their phones.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Obviously they need someone to detain them and whilst nobody likes to be queue-jumped, I would almost rather these people were quietly bussed in via the back door, seen quickly (obviously not before people in great pain or dying) and bussed out again so that the officers could get on with their job.

I know there are a few serving officers on here. Is it a frustration? What's the longest you've spent there babysitting a prisoner?

It's really hard to restrain somebody on your own without somebody getting injured.

[Greendubber]

It's normal for there to often be more police cars outside A&E than ambulances.

I've spent entire shifts down there sat with prisoners and it's soul destroying. When people come into custody they're our responsibility, got a slight injury you couldn't be arsed to deal with for a few weeks before you got arrested, just tell the custody officer and you'll be an hospital rather than a custody block with 3 coppers for company.

Brilliant.

[trickywoo]

I’ve not been to a&e a lot but every time I’ve been there has been at least one person chained to a cop with no obvious injury.

[Greendubber]

trickywoo said:

I’ve not been to a&e a lot but every time I’ve been there has been at least one person chained to a cop with no obvious injury.

They won't have been chained to a cop, prison service more likely.

[mac96]

I have had a similar experience, 6 hours in A & E with some pissed lowlife in the next cubicle supervised by 2 officers with a 3rd in reserve- ie in sight but not having to continually listen to the drivel. Two things struck me:

One officer in particular was astonishingly patient, explaining to lowlife, who seemed to have a memory span of about 6 minutes, time and time again why he had been arrested, without getting annoyed at any stage. By doing so, he deprived lowlife of chance to really disrupt proceedings.

Secondly, lowlife was only there because he had some minor head injury and it needed a doctor to say he was OK to be taken into custody. So why couldn't he have been moved up the queue, so saving the officers' time and reducing the chance of him causing major disruption in A & E?

[The Gauge]

Shooter McGavin said:

Each of these blokes had THREE police officers minding them for the entirety of my eight hours there. Six coppers totally taken out of action just to sit there doing nothing.

Earthdweller said:

And those six officers were probably half of all those available on duty in Reading

When people ask why cops don't come to them when called, that ^^ answers the question perfectly.

[darreni]

mac96 said:

I have had a similar experience, 6 hours in A & E with some pissed lowlife in the next cubicle supervised by 2 officers with a 3rd in reserve- ie in sight but not having to continually listen to the drivel. Two things struck me:

One officer in particular was astonishingly patient, explaining to lowlife, who seemed to have a memory span of about 6 minutes, time and time again why he had been arrested, without getting annoyed at any stage. By doing so, he deprived lowlife of chance to really disrupt proceedings.

Secondly, lowlife was only there because he had some minor head injury and it needed a doctor to say he was OK to be taken into custody. So why couldn't he have been moved up the queue, so saving the officers' time and reducing the chance of him causing major disruption in A & E?

While it does seem labour intensive for the officers, they are dealing with those who have serious addiction issues, mental health issues along with those who are total scum. My wife has been having treatment at our local hospital (Taunton), and every time we pass a&e there are as many police cars/ vans as ambulances.

[The Gauge]

mac96 said:

So why couldn't he have been moved up the queue, so saving the officers' time and reducing the chance of him causing major disruption in A & E?

Because the lowlifes know the system and are wise to that. They'll kick off to jump the queue and get seen quicker, and when everyone else has been waiting longer than them, it is right the the lowlife gets seen first?

On the other hand some lowlifes when getting booked in at the police custody cells say on a Friday afternoon will know that they are going to get charged and then remanded in police custody overnight for the next court sitting. But at that time of the day there won't be any vacant slots left in the Saturday morning court, and with there not being any other courts sitting over the weekend they'll have to stay in the police cells all weekend until the Monday morning court. So they claim to be ill or injured so that they get taken to hospital and spend most of the weekend in a comfy hospital bed with proper meals being brought to them. That's better than a police cell.

[mac96]

The Gauge said:

mac96 said:

So why couldn't he have been moved up the queue, so saving the officers' time and reducing the chance of him causing major disruption in A & E?

Because the lowlifes know the system and are wise to that. They'll kick off to jump the queue and get seen quicker, and when everyone else has been waiting longer than them, it is right the the lowlife gets seen first?

On the other hand some lowlifes when getting booked in at the police custody cells say on a Friday afternoon will know that they are going to get charged and then remanded in police custody overnight for the next court sitting. But at that time of the day there won't be any vacant slots left in the Saturday morning court, and with there not being any other courts sitting over the weekend they'll have to stay in the police cells all weekend until the Monday morning court. So they claim to be ill or injured so that they get taken to hospital and spend most of the weekend in a comfy hospital bed with proper meals being brought to them. That's better than a police cell.

Yes, I can see that, but frankly even as one of those who might have had to wait longer if he had been seen first, I would have been happy to wait in order for him to be gone. Him being seen first would have been in everyone's interest.

To be fair to him, I think my lowlife wasn't gaming anything. He didn't want to be there or to see a doctor, he wanted to get the process over with, and he definitely had been hit on the head (By the person he had assaulted!).

[Old Merc]

Shooter McGavin said:

I had a visit to A&E at Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading last Friday night, nothing too serious, but I was there for 8hrs from midnight to 8am.

Same thing happened to me at Royal Berkshire A&E. Reading.
I’m 77 and recovering from a serious illness. While out I had a fall, split my head, taken by ambulance.
There were police all over the place, many guys in handcuffs. Must have been a big gang fight or what ever. Anyway I was last in the queue, they were all getting treatment first.
I sat in a corridor for hours, finally saw a doctor who wanted to see the result of a MRI scan. Another wait as some of the gang needed scans.
Finally scanned, all ok, got home at 05.30 am

I suppose the police have to make sure thugs that they arrest with injuries are properly treated.
If anything happened to them while in custody, they would be in trouble.

[surveyor]

I was chatting to an elderly chap while waiting for our wives to come out of the chemotherapy unit.

Both had been to hospital with a temperature where the instruction is go to a&e now, they will be expecting you.

Chemotherapy can make patients very vulnerable to infection so they really don’t want patients sat in the main waiting room.

We went to a smaller hospital in the next town down where it’s easier to park and often you get seen quicker. My wife was pit straight in a room on our own before being moved to a private room and a bit later an en-suite room off the ward.

The elderly chap took his wife to the main hotel. She was kept in a store room overnight while a prisoner was kept in a private room with a couple of police officers. They to be fair were mortified and checked in with the elderly couple regularly to see if they wanted tea etc.

[richhead]

would it not be worth having a nurse or similar in the police station instead, someone who can patch up barfight cuts etc, do triage for more serious things etc

[Richard-D]

richhead said:

would it not be worth having a nurse or similar in the police station instead, someone who can patch up barfight cuts etc, do triage for more serious things etc

Probably more efficient but you'd have to find someone willing to do it. That's going to be a hard sell to get someone to go from dealing with 20% idiots to 90% idiots. It would also mean giving up that nursing job which allows most of them to hang around in a big group nattering while one Nigerian nurse runs around like a blue-arsed fly.