OFFICERS on restricted duties should have more flexibility in their roles to reflect what they can do rather than what they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the view of Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor, who says some colleagues are \u201cpulling their hair out\u201d in frustration at their restricted duties.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe question with restriction should be, ‘What can you do?’, not ‘This is what you can’t do’.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve got colleagues that have been on restrictions and they are pulling their hair out because they want to do more but the archaic nature of the restrictions mean they can’t.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoles should be tailored to the individual circumstances of the officer, and there should be more flexibility to reflect what the officer can do, not what the organisation say you can’t do.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was speaking as it emerged that the number of police officers experiencing stress and psychological disorders across England and Wales has risen dramatically \u2013 meaning more are returning to work on restricted duties.<\/p>\n
Across the country, there has been a 37% increase in the number of officers taking sick leave due to PTSD, stress, anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n
Mr Taylor added: \u201cEssex has moved from having one of the highest levels of sickness in the country to having one of the, if not the, highest level of restricted officers in the country. So officers have been encouraged back to work, and then put into a different category of restricted duties rather than fully operational.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice officers who are off with stress, with PTSD, with depression and a whole other host of mental health related afflictions, are not taking time off \u2013 they are off sick. They are on sick leave or they should be on sick leave, and it is an important distinction that I think needs to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OFFICERS on restricted duties should have more flexibility in their roles to reflect what they can do rather than what they can\u2019t. That\u2019s the view of Essex Police Federation Chairman\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1960,"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\/3459"}],"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=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3461,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions\/3461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}