MORE must be done to improve the piecemeal approach to officers\u2019 mental health across the country, the Police Dependants\u2019 Trust has said.<\/p>\n
Officers experiencing symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder receive vastly different treatment depending on their force, Gill Scott-Moore has said.<\/p>\n
Ms Scott-Moore, the Trust\u2019s CEO, was speaking after it emerged that officers are experiencing 14% more mental illness this year compared with last.<\/p>\n
She asked: \u201cWhy is it that PTSD in some forces will result in an injury retirement, in others a resignation and in the worst cases prosecution? It shouldn\u2019t matter which force you are in or where you live; you should be entitled to similar mental health care.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seemingly different approaches to supporting those with poor mental health in every force and, in larger forces, different approaches in different commands.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some forces, officers will be kept on full pay, whilst in others we pay for their food because they have been cut to nil. Or, when all the specialist medical opinion is that an officer should be medically retired, the application is turned down, sometimes by the SMP, on other occasions against their advice too. I simply don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Police Dependants\u2019 Trust helped one officer who would have had less than \u00a35,600 a year to live on without its financial assistance.<\/p>\n
The Trust has also carried out extensive research into the needs of injured police officers \u2013 due to be published in November \u2013 and will be making \u00a33 million available to support mental health and wellbeing initiatives in forces.<\/p>\n
Ms Scott-Moore added: \u201cMore than once has a highly vulnerable officer been admitted to a mental health unit and then been discharged early when other patients have become aware they are a police officer. Should Public Health undertake a Health Needs Assessment for the police service in the same way they do for military veterans? I think they should.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writing in Policing Insight magazine, Ms Scott-Moore added: \u201cThere has to be a better way. I don\u2019t know that it is yet but I\u2019m determined to help find it.\u201d<\/p>\n