Over 18,000 officer working days lost to sickness in Leicestershire Police

9 December 2025

Over 18,000 officer working days were lost to sickness in Leicestershire Police last year, which shows “just how dangerous policing is”, the Chair of Leicestershire Police Federation has said.

Andy Spence was commenting on Home Office figures collected by The Telegraph, which show that 1.63 million police working days were lost to illness or injury in the year to March, the highest level since records began.  

Andy said: “These figures show just how dangerous policing is. In Leicestershire, we have seen over 900 officers assaulted in the past year and, on top of this, officers are facing hundreds of traumatic incidents every year.

“Policing is a job like no other: officers are being assaulted, they are tackling large workloads, and attending many traumatic incidents.

“Officers have been exposed to significant trauma such as self harm, stabbings and fatal road collisions, as well as child abuse images. Behind every uniform is a human being who takes that trauma with them, and at some point these officers will break.”

Andy pointed to a recent survey that found 20% of officers intended to leave the police service, with the main reasons being low morale, the impact of the job on their family and personal life, and the impact of the job on their mental health and wellbeing.

Andy said there needed to be tougher sentencing of offenders who assault police officers: “When officers are assaulted, we need sentencing of offenders that reflects not only the physical and mental trauma that an officer is exposed to, but also the wider impact of frontline officers not being able to respond as they are off sick and even laid up in hospital.”

A spokesperson from the Police Federation of England and Wales said: “What is shocking is the record number of police officers – nearly 9,000 a year – who are resigning from policing before the job breaks them. More than 18 officers die by suicide every year.

“Policing needs to fix its leadership and create healthy workplaces where officers can thrive. Bad pay, worse morale and the challenge of working in conditions where every shift ends late and rest days are cancelled regularly are contributory factors to sickness absence.”