Forces Need To Collect Traumatic Incident Data

FORCES need to collect data on the number of traumatic incidents officers attend so they can be more proactive about protecting their mental health, the Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Last week the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW)’s Wellbeing Lead, Hayley Aley, spoke at the Emergency Services Show and pointed out that forces currently do not hold any records about the number of traumatic incidents an officer has attended while on duty.

Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation Steve Kent said that forces must recognise that the “drip effect of trauma over time can be enormous”.

He said: “Forces should proactively monitor the traumatic incidents officers attend. The vast majority of officers will be able to tell you the effect of attending such incidents, whether it be a fatality, serious assault or an incident where officers may have been assaulted.

“These incidents are part of an officer’s daily life, and the drip effect of trauma over time can be enormous. I know this could be quite a difficult task to collate these figures, but in this day and age, when society is finally recognising the importance of mental health, it’s important that it is recorded.”

Hayley said that if the organisation had the figures, it could take the time to speak to individual officers and check up on them.

The national Federation has successfully piloted a scheme of regular mental health check-ups on Fed Reps, and says that this could also work effectively within forces to help all officers’ wellbeing.

The Federation has its Welfare Support Programme to offer counselling and specialist support to officers who are struggling with mental health problems. But Hayley said that preventative measures also needed to be put into place.

She said: “The support is growing for when things are broken and that is great, but now we have got to start putting out those messages around prevention.

“What we want to do is start this conversation more broadly throughout our membership about preventative measures and what they look like on a practical level.”