Working together to support colleagues

2 December 2022

A message from Luke Mitchell, chair of Hertfordshire Police Federation

It sometimes doesn’t feel like it but I still think being a police officer is the best job in the world and that is largely down to the people we work with.

This was brought home to me at a recent council meeting at which every single support group within policing in Hertfordshire was represented.

We invited them all to come along to talk to the Fed reps, explain what they do and how they offer help and support to colleagues, and it was a really positive meeting.

A representative from one of the support groups said they were really encouraged by the fact that, although we were all from different groups, and in our case from the Police Federation, essentially we are all here to help other police officers and that is worth celebrating.

It just goes to show that there are so many good people within our organisation who are willing to go that extra mile to help each other because all this extra work that people take on is done in their own time.

I found it really heartwarming to hear people in that room talking about diversity, disability, equality and rights issues and to hear about the support available to colleagues with  dyslexia, ADHD and autism.

To hear about all these fantastic things that are happening day in and day out was amazing and it was really good to meet up with these incredible people who do so much good work.

It also gave us a great opportunity to share information and experiences and it highlighted the importance of  working a little bit closer together which is something I hope we can do going forward. 

We are also still pressing ahead with a double-crewing campaign and are continuing to work with the Force to see how that can be explored.

We had an amazing response from members when we said we wanted to move towards a policy where all frontline officers are double-crewed and so hopefully it is something we will be able to achieve in the future.

We are also working with the Force on the growing problem of how police officers deal with people suffering mental health crises when the NHS is unable to provide appropriate care.

Our members are increasingly finding themselves in very difficult positions and in some cases people are actually being unlawfully detained. We are keeping a very close eye on it.

And we have had positive news on our push for better female representation in frontline supervisory roles with our first female inspector now on response teams. That is definitely something we want to see more of in the future.

Before I sign off I’d also like to mention our late colleague Detective Constable Matt Davies who lost his battle with cancer at the age of 49. Our thoughts are with his wife and young family.

I’ll close as usual with a reminder that your Police Federation is there for you 24/7 so please do not hesitate to contact us with any issues or problems you may need support with.