Monitoring Traumatic Callouts Will Help Officers' Mental Health

21 September 2021

Collecting data on traumatic events could help protect officers from mental health problems further down the line, Greater Manchester Police Federation has said.

Chairman Stu Berry was talking after the Police Federation of England and Wales called for forces to record the number of traumatic incidents attended by officers.

Stu said: “I feel this would help to increase welfare provision for our hard-working members.

“Welfare is the responsibility of each Chief Constable and a comprehensive recording system to identify traumatic incidents and/or the accumulation of traumatic incidents will significantly diminish the risk of the difficulties associated with mental wellbeing for our members.

“Identifying these issues early can make a real difference for thousands of officers. We are already in negotiation to implement a comprehensive and digital near miss and injury database within GMP on behalf of our members. I am sure a system of this type could also be adapted to capture trauma incident data. This is an issue I will continue to pursue with our Chief Constable.”

Currently, forces do not hold any records on the number of traumatic incidents an officer has attended whilst on duty, according to the PFEW.

PFEW Wellbeing Chair Hayley Aley said: “Wouldn’t it be great if we knew that an officer had attended a series of traumatic incidents and how many they had been subjected to recently, because they implode on an officer’s mental health.

“If the organisation could work with that information, take the time to speak to the officer, check in and give them that support we would be pre-emptively tackling the problem. At the moment, no forces hold that data, and unless the individual asks for help, nobody knows they are struggling.”