“Annual mental health check ups would arrest stress early”

AUTOMATIC health check-ups for officers should be introduced to improve morale and wellbeing, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Chairman Steve Kent said: “We need to invest heavily across the board in automatic mental health check-ups for officers, whether that just be literally an annual, one-hour, one-to-one with medical professionals, just to ask a few questions to identify if there’s anything underneath the surface or anything bubbling for officers.

“I think that there would be an absolute massive step in the right direction and would arrest stress in its early stages rather than letting it get out of control and officers then going off sick.”

Earlier this month the Police Federation of England and Wales’s leavers’ survey found that more than half of officers who resigned between October 2017 and April 2019 (51%) blamed poor morale. Stress and soaring demand were also listed as factors forcing officers to resign.

Steve listed a number of moves that could improve morale across the service and aid retention. “Officers’ working conditions need to be improved. There needs to be better pay to acknowledge the unique stresses that police officers face. Numbers need to rise to reduce the stress on the few officers that are left,” he said.

Occupational health departments are overrun, but more investment needs to be made in this area to support existing officers and the 20,000 new ones being recruited, Steve added.

The survey also found that 66% of people would never consider returning to the police service, and that 30% of officers said a better work/life balance would make them reconsider their decision to leave. One in four said improvements to welfare and a lower workload would make them reconsider.

John Apter, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales said earlier this month: “Police officers are not robots, they are human beings. They are exhausted and consistently exposed to things people should never have to see with a large proportion also leaving because of the toll taken on their psychological health.”