Health and policing consensus statement published

We are delighted to be signatories of the new 2025 Health and Policing Consensus Statement, which sets out a clear commitment from public health and policing organisations to work together to protect communities.

The social determinants of health overlap significantly with the social determinants of crime. Those at greater risk of health inequalities are often the same populations at risk of being a victim or a perpetrator of crime.  This means that police and health are often working with the same populations and seeing the same issues. Taking a public health approach to policing provides the opportunity to look further upstream to understand the root causes of these complex, interlinked issues and to embed a long-term, prevention mindset.

The new consensus demonstrates a renewed commitment across the system to work together to tackle the underlying and often shared determinants of health and crime, in order to protect and prevent harm to our communities by:

• Establishing ethical frameworks that inform the approach to multi-agency data sharing.
• Collaborating to understand the drivers of demand and designing evidence-based solutions using problem solving and public health approaches.
• Meaningfully incorporating community perspectives in the design, delivery, and evaluation of services.
• Providing a clear vision for the work and creating organisational cultures and opportunities where learning can be put into practice.