Kent Police Federation to focus even more on mental health following demand survey figures

13 February 2019

Kent police officers believe their workloads are ‘too high’ and that they aren’t enough officers in the force to meet demand.

New figures from the Police Federation of England and Wales also reveal that the stresses and strains of the job are leading to a huge number of officers (84%) experiencing feelings of stress, low mood and anxiety.

The Demand, Capacity and Welfare Survey showed that 80% of respondents from the Kent force believe their workload to be too high while 88% said there were not enough officers to allow them to do their job properly.

One in two officers reported working to unrealistic time pressures while the majority (66%) also said they were unable to take proper rest breaks while on duty.

The results were not great surprise to Kent Police Federation Chairman Chris Carter who says the Federation will build on the work already done around tackling mental health to support officers further.

“What’s clear from the survey is the demand being placed on officers continues to pile the pressure on them,” he said.

“80% of Kent officers said their workload was too high which is higher than the national average and it was interesting to see that 50% feel they are working to unrealistic time pressures.

“That’s something we’ve been focusing on recently and again it’s higher than the national figure, so they do seem to something which affects us here in Kent.”

Some of the symptoms of being under-resourced include the amount of single crewed shifts – 69% of Kent officers said they often or always went out single crewed, up from 53% recorded in the 2016 survey figures.

The force strength has gone down from 3,700 officers to 3,200 since austerity began and it will take time for new recruits to bed in and to hopefully begin to turn some of the survey figures around, Chris added.

“We obviously welcome the new recruits and extra resources from the PCC, but they will take time to filter and it will be 12 months or so until we get back to where we were 10 years ago.”

“Kent officers feel there is not enough of them to do the job properly and that all ties in with the time pressures they feel and the fact that they feel stress and experience low mood,” he said.

“A lot of these figures come as no surprise and reflect what we’ve been focusing on as a Federation for years.

“From a Federation point of view, we’ll be further highlighting the figures around stress and mental health and will be saying to the force there is more we can do to assist officers.

“What we do around tackling mental health is good in Kent, but we want to focus on it even more.”