ESSEX Police officers following their Federation\u2019s guidelines and using PPE on duty has helped to \u2018send out the right message\u2019 to the public.<\/p>\n
Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said face coverings are being used by officers especially when they cannot keep to social distancing guidelines and when they are double crewing.<\/p>\n
She says the Federation is fully behind the national Federation\u2019s campaign to encourage officers to use PPE and keep themselves and others safe out on the streets.<\/p>\n
Thankfully too, the force has been able to get their hands on enough kit to keep officers well supplied.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight from the beginning, as Essex Police Federation, we\u2019ve been saying in our conversations with the force about seeing officers getting out of carriers and cars without wearing masks, what message was that sending the public?\u201d Laura said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t reinforce how serious we\u2019re telling the public it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it is really important that officers comply with it, the same as we\u2019re asking the public to, for the same reasons – we\u2019re not immune to it, so we\u2019re still putting ourselves at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers had become complacent, but that has had a bit of a turnaround. It\u2019s a good thing the force made wearing PPE mandatory again and this got everyone thinking and got them to focus again,\u201d Laura added.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtherwise I think we would have been losing numbers through sickness, which we haven\u2019t done throughout COVID-19 so far – we\u2019ve been really, really lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important officers who may be returning to work having shielded at home for months also feel reassured that the proper steps are in place to protect them and their families, Laura said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gone past the end of shielding, and Essex Police aren\u2019t asking officers that have been shielding to rush back into the organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no push there at all, which is \u00a0good and is something we support. But other officers that have been at work throughout this need to be mindful that some of these people are quite scared to come back into the workplace.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeaking with colleagues who have been shielding for three months, they feel vulnerable, and they are nervous about coming back.We need to respect each other\u2019s space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police officers following their Federation\u2019s guidelines and using PPE on duty has helped to \u2018send out the right message\u2019 to the public. Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138265,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137773\/revisions\/138265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/138054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}