Audit of hospital transfers January to March 2006 from Sussex police custody.

The aim of this audit was to determine a baseline for timing, numbers and case mix of detainees referred to hospital for medical assessment in order to review the effectiveness of existing custody procedures for the management of medical emergencies. Data was examined for the 3-month period January to March 2006. A total of 12015 detainees were processed during this period, 188 patients identified as requiring hospital assessment, a hospital transfer rate of 1.57% for the period, 80 cases (0.65%) were for potentially life threatening conditions. The health care team assessed 37.7% of all detainees and were recorded as involved in 151 of the 188 cases transferred (80%). The categories of patients sent to hospital included head injury (26/188 or 13.8%), overdose and poisoning (20/188 or 10.6%); chest pain (17/188 or 9.0%), collapse (12/188 or 6.4%), unrousable intoxicated (10/188 or 5.3%), possible drug swallowers (7/188 or 3.72%), breathing problems (4 or 2.12%), acute confusional state (3/188 or 1.6%), 2/188 had a query deep vein thrombosis, one diabetic problem and one acute allergic reaction. The largest category of all was for a miscellany of minor injury unit care.