SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation continues to work closely with the force to ensure there are good health and safety practices that protect officers in their working lives.<\/p>\n
The Police Federation of England and Wales has highlighted health and safety failings in forces around the country, and is reminding forces of their legal obligations to treat their employees with dignity, consideration and understanding \u2013 saying that the buck stops with Chief Constables.<\/p>\n
The national Health and Safety Lead said they were \u201cshocked\u201d by the information sent by Federation Reps around the country, detailing the health and safety failings by forces.<\/p>\n
They said: \u201cThis ranges from not recognising obvious risks leading to a direct threat to life, to the lack of the provision of basic facilities to maintain the dignity of officers seeking toilet breaks or to change sanitary products. This is not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve Kent, Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said that South Yorkshire Police was generally \u201cconstructive and progressive\u201d when it came to health and safety, but that the Federation was working closely with the force to continue to make improvements.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cTo be fair, our Head of Health and Safety in our force is really on side. And the Federation is about to appoint a new Health and Safety Lead for the local branch, so this is something we\u2019re looking to improve our coverage on and to hold the force to account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things we can do better, but the force is working with us on that. The big issue is the staffing numbers when it comes to teams. We don\u2019t have enough staff on the teams out there, on the frontline. We know that\u2019s going to improve eventually, but we also need to make sure we\u2019re listened to, because it affects our members\u2019 safety.\u201d<\/p>\n