Stressed officers must ask Federation for help

POLICE officers who are experiencing stress and anxiety at work must ask their Federation Representative for help, Steve Taylor has said.

Essex Police Federation’s Chairman was talking after new figures show that rates of mental illness in the force are through the roof.

Eight in 10 Essex Police officers have suffered stress, low mood, anxiety or other wellbeing issues over the past year.

A survey by the Police Federation of England and Wales showed that of the 84% who said they had experienced these feelings, 95% believed they had been caused or made worse by work.

Mr Taylor (pictured) said: “We would advise and encourage any of our colleagues to make contact with the federation if they feel themselves in a bad place because of stresses and pressures of the job. We have welfare support programmes and other resources that can help.

Poor mental health can be blamed on an increasingly overstretched service, Mr Taylor added.

“We have been saying for a while that cuts have consequences, and these are those consequences being borne out,” he said.

“The only thing you get for less is less, and in doing so you apply pressure on the people left behind to provide the service, and that pressure is going to come in the form of anxiety and stress, and in the very worst cases depression and more serious mental health ailments.

“There are no more police officers in the cupboard. When things are as tight as they are, there is no avoiding the fact that the only plausible solution is more officers. But that is not going to happen so we have to make better use of what we have. So we have to ensure that those officers left behind are really well taken care of.”

Two thirds of officers think their workload is too high, according to the survey. Almost two thirds said they were rarely or never able to take their full rest breaks, and 44% said they were unable to take their full annual leave in the past year.