Federation Doing Utmost To Support Officers’ Mental Health

South Yorkshire Police Federation is doing all it can to support officers’ mental health and drive down the crisis of police suicide, Chair Steve Kent has said.

But he warned that forces and the Independent Office for Police Conduct must do their bit by ensuring officers do not spend inordinate amounts of time under investigation.

Data compiled by the Federation shows more than 100 police officers and staff have died by suicide between 2022 and 2025. At least 70 police officers have died during that time and there have been more than 200 attempted suicides.

The Police Federation of England and Wales has established a link between suicide and the police misconduct regime, with 47 of the 70 suicides and 173 of 236 attempts attributable to officers involved in misconduct or criminal investigations against them. In 2025 the link was even stronger, with 12 of 13 police officer suicides involving officers under investigation, the PFEW said.

Steve said: “There needs to be a 12-month cap on investigations, because that will also mean that forces will have to put resources into their Professional Standards Departments, so they’re not creaking at the seams.

“Our force has adopted the Suicide Trauma Education Prevention (STEP) campaign and we’re working closely with welfare support officers and the force to make sure that they step up and have lessons learned from incidents that we’ve had in the past.

“We have been stepping up our counselling support to officers, going to briefings to talk about welfare and sharing information about suicide awareness.”

South Yorkshire Police Federation has recently been working with Roads Policing Group officers and the Federation counsellor is fully booked, which shows that the service is needed, according to Steve.

He added: “I would like to remind colleagues that if they are struggling, they are not alone, there is always help out there. Contact your Federation office if you think you could benefit from support.”