Officers At ‘Boiling Point’ As More Signed Off For Mental Ill Health

THE number of South Yorkshire Police officers being signed off work for mental ill health has gone up by 28% in the past year.

A Freedom of Information request from Police Oracle revealed that 219 South Yorkshire Police officers took time off in 2021-2022 due to stress, depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, compared to 171 last year.

Across all forces in England and Wales, a staggering 13,263 officers were signed off work.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said that officers were overworked, under-resourced and reaching “boiling point”.

He said: “The work rate in the force at the minute, in all departments I speak to – detectives, uniformed officers, people in complex roles – it is getting to boiling point for a lot of people.

“The only way we’re going to deal with this is by turning the temperature down a little bit, trusting our officers to deal with jobs properly. We have to stop bouncing from incident to incident. We have to get more resources onto the street, and obviously better investment in policing.”

Steve said officers who were struggling with their mental health should approach their supervisor or Federation rep, adding: “Between the Federation and the force, we are good at reacting to mental health issues.

“The force is good in terms of occupational health and apps that help officers. And we as a Federation are now expanding our counselling offer so we’ve got our own in-house counselling, as well as online help people can access.

“What we’re not so good at, and we need to keep saying this, is what’s causing the issues in the first place. We need to start looking at preventing poor mental health, rather than just treating it.”