SONAR – Supporting Partnerships such as Right Care Right Person

One of the core motivations of SONAR is to enable more agencies across healthcare, social care, and criminal justice to work together effectively. SONAR will achieve this by enabling real-time sharing of accurate health information between different settings so that the Right Information will enable the Right Person to deliver Better Care.

Our goal is to provide up-to-date health information from a wide range of sources in an accessible format for healthcare professionals to determine appropriate courses of action.  Success will be measured by reductions in preventable deaths and serious harm significantly, and improvements in treatment quality, rates and outcomes for detained populations.   Capturing and presenting patient data in suitable formats to enable better treatment and more informed decision-making to reduce recidivism, with fewer crimes and victims of crime.

Right Care Right Person

This is relevant to a key current initiative, Right Care Right Person (RCRP), first developed by Humberside Police in 2019. The Chief Constable and the Humberside PCC described the programme at a hearing of the Health and Social Care Select Committee in September 2023.

The Chief Constable said that the impetus for a new approach came from his officers. They were conscious that they were attending a greater number of people suffering from poor mental health – but felt that they did not have the skills or experience to help them effectively:

“Day in, day out our officers and staff were saying to us that they were dealing with an increased demand from mental health, but they felt they did not have the skills or ability to help the people. The question is, who is better to deal with a patient going through crisis? In many of these circumstances, and in many of the daily incidents we were attending, someone with training—a mental health doctor or nurse—has to be a better person for someone going through trauma than a police officer.”

The police inspectorate in England had come to the same conclusion in 2018.

Humberside Police worked with health practitioners over three years to develop a new model. Police officers would attend scenes when a police presence was required – when there was an immediate risk to life, when a crime was being committed or when there was a possibility of degrading or inhumane treatment. Otherwise, local mental health services would respond. Adrian Elsworth, general manager of urgent and emergency mental health at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, told the Committee that genuine partnership between police and health services has meant that the needs of every person have been met:

“Mental health services are involved at every step of that. However, when we get higher up and when there are more concerns around risk to an individual, there is still a role for the police to play. It is very much around understanding whose role it is at what juncture and, more importantly, having routes of escalation to allow those conversations so that nobody falls through the net in regard to care needs.”

National Roll-out

The programme has received support from government. In July 2023, the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) and NHS England supported the national implementation of the programme.

The guidance explains that it is appropriate for police to respond to calls “to investigate a crime that has occurred or is occurring; or to protect people, when there is a real and immediate risk to the life of a person, or of a person being subject to or at risk of serious harm”.

The guidance emphasised that partnership is essential, and that local partnerships must be in place before changes in police response take place:

“It is crucial that at the heart of planning and implementing RCRP for people with mental health needs, there is a focus on ensuring patient safety is maintained and people in mental health crisis are not left without support. This means the approach to RCRP implementation for people with mental health needs should be planned and developed jointly through cross-agency partnerships before changes to responses are introduced. While police forces will ultimately determine the timeframe for implementing the RCRP approach locally, it should be established following engagement with health, social care, and other relevant partners. Once implemented, locally developed arrangements should be monitored and reviewed over time.”

National mental health leaders have emphasised the need for evaluation of the impact on health services around the country and have called for extra resources for mental health services. Sean Duggan, chief of the NHS Confederation’s mental health network, has said:

“Health leaders are pleased that the DHSC has commissioned a short-term evaluation project into the impact on the NHS in five areas but now want to see this as an ongoing evaluation across the country. It must also include the views and experiences of people with mental health issues and have a focus on the most at-risk groups. The aims of Right Care Right Person are laudable. But it must be implemented at a pace that doesn’t risk the safety of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.”

SONAR – Supporting Partnership

SONAR is ideally placed to support partnership working of the kind embodied in Right Care Right Person. Through appropriate information governance, security of data, informed patient consent and role-based access controls, SONAR can record the medical and social care needs of the patient. 

Through appropriate and authorised data sharing agreements, SONAR can then share the patient record between:

• Healthcare Professionals

• Mental Health Practitioners

• Police officers and other emergency service professionals

• Social Care organisations and agencies

• Voluntary sector organisations – who have been a key part of delivery in Humberside.

The aim is to reduce the risk to the person, enable a safe intervention by the Police and enhance any vital sharing of medical and social care information by health and social care professionals. The Right Information will enable the Right Person to deliver Better Care, and enable more people to live the best life they can.

John White

Founder & CEO

One Year Follow Up to the HMICS Report

It has been over a year since the publication of a key report, “National baseline review of healthcare provision within police custody centres in Scotland”, by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS).

The review identified a great variation in access to healthcare between different custody locations and made a powerful case for improvements in the quality of healthcare provision. With great relevance to our work at SONAR, the review emphasised the importance of collection and sharing of data:

“There was a recognition that improvement is needed in how services capture and report on healthcare data and key performance indicators in the context of police custody. There was consensus across all NHS Scotland boards that the current electronic system for recording healthcare data (Adastra) is not fit for purpose and does not support the comparison of clinical data nor enable national reporting.”

It concluded by calling for a new electronic system to replace the current infrastructure:

“It is clear therefore, that Health boards require a suitable electronic system that supports them to appropriately record and monitor clinical data to ensure patient needs are met and enables the comparison and sharing of clinical data.”

One year later and these concerns remain current. In fact earlier this month, the report “Nothing to see here”, published by the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, presented very similar evidence. The study found that between 2015 and 2023, 26 people died in custody in Scotland with a further 198 deaths following police contact . Across all custodial settings, a repeated cause of death and harm were basic errors of information such as lost hospital letters, missed appointments or recommended tests:

“In previous reports we have noted a tendency in prison of homogenising the prison population as ‘unhealthy’, side lining scrutiny of healthcare quality and access within custody. Several cases raised questions about the possible impacts that incarceration can have on health outcomes, including poor communication between prisons and hospitals, missed health appointments and scans.”

It goes without saying that we at SONAR are still here and even more ready to help. Evidence from England also shows the importance of accurate collection and sharing of key data. We remain keen to work with all relevant authorities to progress the recommendations of the HIS / HMICS report, in particular recommendation #5:

“NHS National Services Scotland, NHS boards and HSCPs should work together to ensure clinical data is appropriately recorded and monitored to ensure patient needs are met and to support the comparison of clinical data and national reporting of outcomes.”

John White

Founder & CEO

The Power of Visualised Data: A Key to Understanding and Improving KPIs and Data Quality

Unlocking the Potential of Data through Visualisation

In the age of digital information, data is the cornerstone of decision-making in any organisation. However, the vast amount of data can be overwhelming, leading to indecision or incorrect conclusions, becoming a cause for concern when dealing with the healthcare of people in custody.   This is where the power of visualised data comes into play. By transforming complex data sets into graphical representations, we can unlock a deeper understanding to help make more informed decisions.

Visualising for Better Understanding

Visual data representation is not just about making numbers look appealing; it’s about making them speak. Charts, graphs, and other visual tools translate the language of data into a form that is easily digestible and accessible to all levels of an organisation. For example, a trend that might take hours to decipher in a spreadsheet can be understood in seconds through a line graph.

Enhancing KPI Results

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential metrics used to evaluate the success of an organisation and its people. Visualisation tools can track and display these KPIs in real-time, allowing managers and teams to react swiftly to changes. This immediate visibility leads to quicker decision-making and a more agile approach to reaching targets.  Visualised data also plays a crucial role in enhancing data quality. Inconsistent or incorrect data can easily be spotted in visual formats. For example, outliers in a data set that might go unnoticed in rows and columns can be immediately identified in a scatter plot, prompting a further investigation into data accuracy.

Creating a culture that values data-driven decision-making starts with making data accessible and understandable. Visualisation bridges the gap between raw data and actionable insights. When data is presented visually, it becomes a common language that everyone in the organisation can speak and understand.

Several tools and technologies are available to assist in data visualisation. From Microsoft Excel’s basic charts to more sophisticated tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Qlik, these technologies offer varying levels of complexity and customisation to suit different business needs.

In terms of Health and Justice, visualised data plays a crucial role in the ability to present complex information in a more accessible way.   Within the health portion visualised data allows the user to improve their understanding of complex data sets and therefore enhances communication to a broader audience, not just health care professionals.   Within Justice, visualised data increases the users ability to perform analysis.  Identifying patters and relationships between different data sets proves useful in the development of case studies.   This can help with the impact of policy assessments.  For example, policymakers seeing data in a more robust and visualised manner can make informed decisions based on the effectiveness on justice programs aimed at the improvement of recidivism rates.   This vital to the H&J Commissioner when health’s needs analysis and input into the specification for H&J healthcare tenders.

Conclusion

In conclusion, visualised data is a powerful tool in understanding and improving KPIs and data quality. By turning data into visual stories, organisations can gain insights more quickly, make data-driven decisions, and foster a culture that embraces data as a key asset. In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, the ability to effectively visualise data is not just an advantage; it’s a necessity.

SONAR CMS comes with the functionality to visualise your data is a more meaningful and impactful way.   We allow the user to manipulate their reporting views to create dynamic and informative visuals that enhance the story of data and provide meaningful insights into the behaviours of your KPI results.  

John White

Founder & CEO