THE Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation has urged officers against using any annual leave or re-rostered rest days to cover for sickness.<\/p>\n
A study has found that 76% of police officers admitted to taking annual leave instead of phoning in sick or to using holiday to finish work that should be done in normal working hours.<\/p>\n
Neil Bowles, Federation Chairman, said: \u201cWe need to know the true statistics of sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe\u2019ve noticed both from HR and from our point of view that there\u2019s a lot more officers complaining about stress and anxiety at work, workloads, the amount of hours they have to work, their rest days being cancelled.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven our management are recognising it. There\u2019s a specific wellbeing group being set up, one to cover both the Humberside and South Yorkshire, which our secretary, Jim Lucas, is part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got employee assistance programmes on the intranet that people can join confidentially, for free, and get all sorts of health advice and coping strategies. Our occupational health unit are so busy that they probably need more staff to cope, because on top of the normal policing business that our members have, we\u2019ve also got the ongoing legacy issues of Hillsborough coming to conclusion with the inquest, but that won\u2019t stop there because no doubt CPS will want to think about criminal charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the ongoing CSE issue through seven or eight different enquiries. And the possibility of an Orgreave enquiry over the tops of our heads, but luckily for that latter one, I don\u2019t think there\u2019ll be anyone left serving that was involved at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
What would the message be to members that are struggling with burnout?<\/p>\n
\u201cI know why officers do it; it\u2019s so that their attendance criteria stays reasonable so that they can actually apply for lateral movement, promotion and even overtime,\u201d said Mr Bowles.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I would certainly advise against using any annual leave or re-rostered rest days to cover for sickness. We need to know the true statistics of sickness, if you\u2019re on annual leave you can be recalled so we don\u2019t want people who are unfit for duty being recalled, and until the true figures are known there\u2019s not a lot that management or the Federation can do to support the members.<\/p>\n