Doctors and police officers training for the hardest job of all

Doctors and police officers will train together this week at the University of Portsmouth to tackle the difficult task of responding to the unexpected death of a child.

While unexpected child death is rare in the UK, it has a big impact on those investigating its cause. These tragic cases require doctors and police officers to work together to find out how and what happened. The course is based on evidence from the Serious Case Reviews, which highlighted that a lack of understanding between the police and medical teams can often cause a breakdown in trust and communication.

The unique one-day course was paused during the COVID pandemic and organisers say this year they have been inundated with applications from doctors and police officers from all over the UK.

Dr John Fox, Senior Lecturer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, one of the course Co-Directors said: "When a child dies unexpectedly, doctors and police detectives have a very difficult task to try and find out how and why it happened, whilst still maintaining a very sensitive and measured approach to avoid upsetting the parents.

“In rare cases, the child may have been deliberately harmed and it is vital that such cases are quickly identified so that siblings, or future siblings within that family, don't suffer the same fate. This course brings together the key people who will have to work together on these complex cases and helps them learn to trust each other and operate effectively as a team. As a University, we are proud to be part of our local community and we have a civic responsibility to use our excellent resources to help enhance the work of doctors and police officers."

The doctors and senior detectives will work together through realistic scenarios in the University’s £7m fully equipped hospital and healthcare simulation suite.

Laura Knight, Course Co-Director, Teaching Fellow, School of Health and Care Professions, said: "Passively learning about a specialist and important topic through lectures and theory-based study days may provide the learner with information, but by immersing them completely in an environment designed to contextualise the topic, simulation has proven itself to be an excellent method of low risk, meaningful learning. Our facilities are specifically designed with high-fidelity immersion in mind, which allows the learner to focus on the task at hand, without having to try and imagine what it would be like to be in a hospital, making the learning much more in-depth and real.

“The aim of this course is not only to provide the learners with information, processes and to test decision making, but to allow them to experience and regulate their emotional state in an intense, highly emotive situation. This, coupled with a 360 degree view of multi-agency working, will hopefully stand them in good stead to cope with this situation in their everyday roles."

A Hampshire Police Detective Inspector praised a previous course saying: “I have attended 24 child deaths in the last 18 months and this training felt as real as it gets."