Staffordshire Police Federation treasurer Pete Blamire and workplace representative Claire Bond were among the 1,200 delegates attending this year’s virtual police conference and listened with interest to the wellbeing session on Day 2.
The session, with Hayley Aley, the Police Federation of England and Wales’ (PFEW) wellbeing chair, and wellbeing secretary Belinda Goodwin and Chief Constable Andy Rhodes of the National Police Wellbeing Service, known as Oscar Kilo, asked whose responsibility wellbeing was.
Pete said: “The wellbeing session was great but forces should be held far more accountable for officers’ wellbeing than they currently are. Staffordshire Police Federation has, over the last 18 months, become much more involved with officer wellbeing but the Force needs to step up and show it really care about its officers and staff.”
Claire added: “This was such a crucial part of the conference. I am totally devoted to the health and wellbeing of our members and the Force and its staff as a whole.
“Wellbeing issues have multiplied for the past 18 months and morale is at its lowest. I thought a video clip shown during the session of two frontline officers was a brilliant way of listening to those who are going through these changes; one who has years of experience and one who is only three years in but is already noticing the difficulties of self-care.
“I’d like to share this with the Force so senior leaders understand this issue is nationwide and something, for an organisation such as Staffordshire Police, to take note of and make change for the future.
“A survey completed by a neighbouring force showed that areas of concern and stress factors are rubbish IT, constant internal and external demands and a complete misunderstanding of the officer role. This must be acted upon, particularly in view of the fact that suicide has increased by 80 per cent, especially among police officers, and morale injury is a real worry. The danger is that this will only increase if it’s ignored.
“Basically we need to listen, adapt and make changes.”
Hayley said ‘even the smallest changes made across the force will have a huge impact’ on the welfare of officers and, looking ahead, she said she hoped to not be sitting here next year, ‘saying the same thing over and over’.
“We’ve only just opened the box, looking at what pressures are affecting officers,” she said, “We need to look at the things that need to change to prevent mental health and the physical issues people are feeling. We need to prevent people from walking away from the workplace because they can’t cope.
“It’s the simple things that need to change, the day-to-day jobs. Those quick changes will have a long-term impact on the organisation.”
Belinda said that wellbeing can be broken down into four parts, including mental health, physical wellbeing, financial wellbeing and general wellbeing.
“We have to stop just talking about it,” she said, “We need to make fundamental changes to impact the wellbeing across forces.”
CC Rhodes said it is vital officers who open up about mental health are supported.
“We’ve given officers the confidence to talk,” he said, “The data tells us that people are becoming more confident in sticking their hand up and saying they’re struggling with mental health. We need to be able to support them.”
Several members of West Mercia Police Federation spoke up about the wellbeing issues felt across the Force, with the branch secretary, Steven Butler, highlighting some of the feedback he had received following a recent survey in which officers leaving the police were asked what had contributed to their decision to leave.
“Very recently, within the last month, we had one notification saying that it was down to workload, pressures of the job and paperwork kept increasing,” he said, explaining that these comments had come from someone who ‘takes pride in being an active officer’.
He added: “Taking criminals off the streets, that gave him the motivation, but it was very rare that he could do this. He found that, more often, he was stuck to his desk.”
Steve referenced another participant, this time a sergeant, who said he had become ‘fatigued by the job’ adding that he had ‘only just been promoted’ and was already ‘ready to leave’.
Steve ended by saying: “Let’s not lose sight of why we need to get this right. If these officers break, the significance of these breaks is huge.”
