Help For Police Officer Fatigue Available

FATIGUE is an increasing problem in policing, especially since officers are working more overtime during the cost-of-living crisis, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

The national Federation has launched a new initiative, Target Fatigue, helping officers recognise fatigue and giving them the help and resources they need to address the problem.

Within the Target Fatigue pages are useful, printable assets that include a ‘do not disturb’ door sign for night-shift workers and links to instructional documents that can guide on subjects from health to the law.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: “Fatigue is something we’re looking at consistently. What we are certainly seeing, possibly more so in terms of the inspecting ranks within our organisation, is people doing wildly long hours.

“Some officers, sadly, are having to live on overtime because of the cost-of-living crisis. But it does come at a cost, in that these officers are knackered. They’re extremely tired, and nobody wants officers to make a mistake behind the wheel or while dealing with a complex investigation.

“Certainly for firearms officers, for which there are already safeguards in place, they’ve got to be really careful. And as well as that, this has a massive effect on people’s home lives.

“Increasingly we hear about officers working shifts and the lack of balance is causing them to suffer from illnesses that tend to be associated with people later in life.”

Officers need to make sure that they can take all the leave they are entitled to, Steve said, adding that there are regulations around leave that members can talk to the Federation about.

He said: “If officers aren’t able to take their leave, they need to come to us and we will put pressure on the force, because we’re hearing about that in some of our districts at the moment.

“What I would always advise officers is to get your leave requests in early. Otherwise officers find themselves with a massive amount of leave to take, but only three or four months left to take it, so it’s very difficult for them to actually take it.”

He continued: “Officers need to look after themselves. Our force is quite good on wellbeing, on intervention, but we’re not that good about stopping cops being broken in the first place. We need to stop it at the front end, and that’s only going to change with a change of the culture within policing.”