The National Police Wellbeing Service and the Police Digital Service have developed an app for forces to record incidents of assault against officers and staff.
It has been developed with software companies Agilisys and Microsoft as part of the Operation Hampshire programme to deal with the issue on assaults on police.
The app has been built on the Microsoft Power Apps platform as one of the National Enabling Programmes (NEPs) for police forces and made available to them free of charge to deploy on Office 365 systems.
It is aimed at supporting staff involved in Operation Hampshire and others with relevant roles in areas such as HR, wellbeing and ICT.
NEP said the app has been designed from the input perspective of a busy frontline supervisor, with a set of questions that should take less than five minutes to complete for each assault.
Positive feedback
It has undergone a live trial within the City of London that has reportedly received positive feedback.
The app does not replace the various crime recording systems across forces but is intended to provide a simple method for capturing the essential details of assaults quickly - and to ensure consistency in the data recorded.
The data will be owned and managed at force level, with redacted information fed into a national database to provide a UK-wide picture. This is aimed at providing a deeper understanding of the levels of violence used against officers and staff, to identify specific issues, provide an evidence base to make decisions, and support forces in adapting training, equipment and procedures.
Forces will still lead the local response to incidents following the Op Hampshire process, ensuring officers and staff are supported and relevant actions are taken.
