Men’s Health Day (Tuesday 19 November): join the conversation

18 November 2024

Nottinghamshire Police Federation members are encouraged to sign up to the Force’s Men’s Health Forum to help break down barriers around physical and mental wellbeing.

The forum is organising a series of talks for International Men’s Health Day (Tuesday 19 November).

The event is being held at Force headquarters and is part of the work of the Men’s Health Forum, which aims to break down barriers and encourage men to talk about their issues.

Detective Inspector Luke Todd, chair of the Force’s Men’s Health Network, said: “The idea behind the forum is to give men an area to talk and to point them in the direction of any help they might need.”

The International Men’s Health Day event starts at 10am with talk from PC Mike Mountain about his lived experience with prostate cancer.

Between 11am and midday, Detective Sergeant Charlotte Henson will discuss suicide and suicide prevention.

A networking lunch is being held from midday to 1pm, which will be followed by a talk from Luke on health, fitness, and nutrition.

Wellbeing support

And the last discussion of the day will be from Kelvin Stephens, the Force’s wellbeing support officer, who will talk about health and wellbeing support and services.

Luke said: “Men are bad at talking about anything health-related.

“The diagnosis of most male-specific cancers is low because they just don’t talk about it, preventing early detection.

“When they’re not very well they don’t tend to tell anybody.

“It’s the same, unfortunately, with suicide. We know just over 75 per cent of suicides are men.

“When you look at policing, that number is worse. The last stats we had, about 89 per cent of all police suicides are men.

“Unfortunately, we still have this masculine idea of not being able to talk to anyone, especially if you’re a police officer.

“Women are better than men at seeking help and support and discussing with others when they have issues – and we need to try and improve men’s attitudes to speaking up.”

The forum’s work focuses on six sections: 

• Mental Health and suicide

• Perceptions of masculinity

• Work-life balance

• Male-specific cancers and illness

• Maternity, paternity and adoption leave

• Physical health and nutrition 

Luke is the lead for physical health and nutrition. 

He said: “I was very unhealthy before I became a police officer.

“I was over 17st when I was 21. I’m not very tall, I’m 5ft 6in, so 17st is quite heavy.

“What changed was that I started looking after my health and nutrition, I was looking to join the police and needed to pass the fitness test.

“Then I started running, I started to do longer bike rides and slowly built my fitness up to the point where I ran a 70-mile ultramarathon last month. You really can go from not a lot to wherever you want with some commitment.

“I find it very beneficial. Going for a run or a bike ride or time in the gym will help me feel better, both physically and mentally.

Mental health

“I have a genuine belief that your physical health and your nutrition have a big impact on your mental health and your ability to be resilient and deal with issues.

“We’re trying to encourage people to make small changes that will hopefully lead to big improvements.”

The forum has already had some real successes.

It has provided a series of PSA tests for prostate cancer with donations from the Federation branch and the forces wellbeing team, some of which were positive, Luke said.

“Those people were able to get immediate help,” he said. “It shows we’re having a positive impact on people getting the help they need.

“On the NHS, you don’t get access to these tests until you’re over 60, whereas you can have it if you’re over 40 if you do it through the charity.

“That’s what we were doing and it was those people in the 40 and 60 range that had a high indication and went and got tested.

“It’s great to be able to do if we can get the funding.”

More information about the forum is available via the SharePoint on the Force intranet, or you can contact Luke directly to be signposted to the communications available.

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