Trauma Monitoring Aims To Protect Officers
18 May 2026
New trauma monitoring will help forces identify officers at risk of psychological harm, but more needs to be done to support officers who attend numerous distressing incidents, Surrey Police Federation has said.
The Home Office’s recent policing white paper announced that trauma-monitoring systems will become mandatory across all forces, to ensure the mental toll caused by exposure to death, abuse and neglect is recorded.
The new tracker seeks to intervene before a psychological breakdown occurs. It functions by scanning the force’s crime recording systems and highlighting “red flag” incidents such as fatal road traffic collisions, child sexual abuse and sudden deaths.
Darren Pemble, Chair of Surrey Police Federation, said: “Police officers have a job like no other, where they are exposed to many traumatic and harrowing incidents. To date, officers have been left to manage their own trauma, which invariably comes to a head and they can find themselves broken. A study estimated that 20% of police officers were suffering from clinical levels of PTSD, which is staggering.
“The decision to mandate trauma trackers has taken far too long; the Home Office and forces need to do better with the support they provide to their staff. Surrey Police has only recently introduced a trauma tracker. The impact of trauma on officers is significant: we need to acknowledge this and do more to guard against the psychological damage that policing can have.”
Darren added that cumulative trauma in policing may be one factor in police suicides. He said: “The Police Chiefs’ Council has now introduced the mandatory reporting of police officer suicides and attempted suicides, something the Federation has called for for years.”
Darren said there was also a “sound argument” that police officers and other emergency service workers should be provided an NHS fast-track service or private healthcare, to prevent breakdowns and help officers recover from stress and trauma. He said: “The trauma tracker will help us to have conversations with each other, but more needs to be done – more resources and support are needed.”
