Plan to improve mental health and wellbeing of police officers

ESSEX Police is likely to sign up with a national programme aiming to improve the mental health and wellbeing of police officers.

The nine-point plan was launched last month to help forces across the country deal with the signs of stress in the workforce. The programme, released as a “national template”, promises to help forces improve their focus on officer welfare.

Health and safety representatives from the 43 Home Office forces, as well as from the Scottish Police Federation, the Police Federation for Northern Ireland and the Federations the British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary have been presented with the plan.

They will then be expected to use it to help their forces smash the stigma around stress, recognise signs of poor mental health in police officers and act upon what they have found.

Eight out of ten police officers in Essex have suffered stress, anxiety or other health issues related to their jobs over the past year, according to the Police Federation of England and Wales survey Capacity and Welfare Survey. 95 per cent of respondents believed their condition or low mood was caused or made worse by work.

Essex Police saw 989 responses and almost two thirds – 64 per cent – said they were “rarely” or “never” able to take their full rest break entitlement, while 44 per cent of respondents said they had not been able to take their full annual leave in the past year.

Around 43 per cent of officers questioned said they had previously sought help for mental health and wellbeing issues from a GP, occupational health department, psychologist, therapist or counsellor.

Steve Taylor, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: “At Essex we are quite a forward thinking organisation when it comes to health and wellbeing in the workplace. So we are engaged with the force on this and we are moving in the right direction. What I intend to do is take that national 9 point plan to the Chief and see what his views are on it being signed. It can only support and underline the hard work that Essex is already doing, and that’s not such a bad thing.”

A copy of the nine-point stress plan template can be viewed here: http://www.polfed.org/newsroom/4982.aspx.