Officers Struggling With Mental Health To Receive Fast-Track Support

SOUTH Yorkshire Police officers who are struggling with their mental health can get fast-tracked support thanks to a dedicated counsellor – avoiding the wait times plaguing the NHS. 

Mental health referrals take an average of 18 weeks on the NHS, but South Yorkshire officers can access speedy care thanks to a mental health professional who is in the force every week. 

Steve Kent was speaking after national figures revealed that officers took a record-breaking 500,000 days off sick in a year because of mental ill health. 

South Yorkshire Police is seeing a worrying number of officers dealing with stress and presenteeism, Steve Kent, Police Federation Chair warned. 

He said: “There is a lot of people soldiering on when they probably could do with taking a bit of time out. But there is a real fear amongst officers that they don’t want to leave their colleagues the workload, because if one officer is off sick someone else has got to inherit it. 

“So you’ve got that feeling of misplaced presenteeism. And then it gets to the point where they’re burnt out to such an extent that they’re actually broken. I see and I hear and I speak to seasoned officers who you wouldn’t think are likely to suffer from stress, suddenly go off with stress. 

“There’s got to be some real, massive fundamental changes in the way that we deal with officers. We have our own counsellor who comes in once a week. But there has to be a commitment from Government across the board, to massively increase funding into the mental health and health of police officers. If that means they get six-monthly check ups with a counsellor or an occupational therapist, then great. That’s the only way we’re going to start progressing this.”

Steve said the service had hit “rock bottom” with mental health in recent years, but that there is “light at the end of the tunnel”, adding that when the newly-recruited officers are trained up and bedded in, the demand will lessen. 

He added: “I suppose then the spectre after that is, are police budgets going to be cut again? It needs to have that long-term investment. All we’re doing is repairing the damage of the past 12 years. We’ve got to move beyond it and progress.”