It is ridiculous that there is a national shortage of PPE for police officers, the Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said, but he added that things were improving in his force.<\/p>\n
Steve Kent was speaking after PFEW Health and Safety Lead Mark Andrews pointed out that health and safety regulations mean that Chief Constables should ensure their officers have the best available kit, which includes the new 3<\/a>rd<\/sup><\/a> generation body <\/a>armour<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Steve said: \u201cOur Federation Secretary, Dave Baines, is on the regional procurement route for uniform and kit, so we\u2019re holding the force to account. We are proactively monitoring this and jump on it as soon as we hear anything.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a national issue when it comes to kit and we sometimes hear horror stories of new recruits who don\u2019t have the right body armour. It\u2019s not very common, but it does happen.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when it does we have to intervene and make sure those officers don\u2019t go anywhere near the streets until they\u2019ve got the proper kit. Thankfully that\u2019s very, very rare and it seems to be getting sorted. So we\u2019re on the ball with this.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we do know there\u2019s a backdrop of the national shortage, so again that poses the question: what on earth is going on with the procurement process when we\u2019re having forces all over the country who are sometimes struggling to get hold of coats, bulletproof vests, that kind of thing? It\u2019s absolutely ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n