Mental health issues resulted in 627 Thames Valley Police officers being signed off work last year. <\/p>\n
A Freedom of Information request found the officers were absent due to stress, depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)<\/p>\n
Aileen O’Connor, chair of Thames Valley Police Federation, said she was not shocked by the figures, adding: “These numbers will continue to rise if forces don’t properly address this.”<\/p>\n
A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said the force was “committed to providing the right support at the right time”.<\/p>\n
Figures collated from across the UK found more than 17,700 police officers were signed off for mental health reasons in the financial year of 2024-25. <\/p>\n
The federation explained this was up 22% from the previous year after gathering figures from 45 forces.<\/p>\n
Of those, 33 reported an increased number of officers being signed off for mental ill health.<\/p>\n
Ms O’Connor said the federation was in the process of reviewing Thames Valley Police’s welfare and wellbeing services.<\/p>\n
“I believe we do have gaps in this arena which I’m keen to work with the force to address,” she said. <\/p>\n
However, she said she was encouraged by the introduction of a new mental health crisis line for police officers and staff. <\/p>\n
In a statement, Thames Valley Police said it recognised that policing was a “demanding and often emotionally challenging profession”. <\/p>\n
“Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our officers is a priority, and we are committed to providing the right support at the right time,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“Officers have access to a wide range of services, including occupational health, post-incident trauma support, staff support networks, mentoring, line manager and tutor support, and our multi-faith chaplaincy. <\/p>\n
“We continue to invest in these resources to ensure they meet the needs of our workforce.”<\/p>\n
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting the mental and physical wellbeing of all our police and are working closely with police leaders and staff associations, including the Police Federation, to support this.<\/p>\n
“The launch of the new mental health crisis support line by the National Police Wellbeing Service is a vital step forward, ensuring officers and staff have access to immediate, confidential help when they need it most.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mental health issues resulted in 627 Thames Valley Police officers being signed off work last year. A Freedom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-18915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}