369 Sussex Police officers signed off with mental ill-health

21 July 2025

In Sussex Police, 369 officers were signed off work in 2024-25 due to stress, depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

However this is 10% down on the previous year, when 412 Sussex Police officers were signed off work for mental health reasons – bucking the national trend.

Across the UK, more than 17,700 police officers were signed off for mental health reasons in the financial year 2024-25, which is 22% up on last year and a huge 182% higher than when Police Oracle first ran the survey 12 years ago.

Sussex Police Federation Chair Raffaele Cioffi said he was pleased that the number of officers being signed off in the force was going down.

He said: “It’s really encouraging to see that the numbers in Sussex are starting to decrease, and we’ll be keeping an eye on that. We have been working with the force to get to this point but we are still a way away from the ideal position.

“Our pay and morale survey illustrates that workload is one of the biggest concerns for a lot of our members, which creates that work-related stress and in turn leads to officers being signed off.

“What then happens is that fewer officers are coping with the same workload, creating a vicious cycle that risks yet more officers suffering with stress.

“The force has been working hard to deal with the workload issue, as it is clearly a worrying issue for our members.”

In the most recent pay and morale survey for Sussex, 67% of respondents said that over the previous 12 months, their workload had been ‘too high’ or ‘much too high’. And 5% of officers said they had ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ been able to take an 11-hour break between shifts, while 37% said they feel ‘always’ or ‘often’ feel pressured into working long hours.

The survey also showed that 84% of respondents indicated that they had experienced feelings of stress, low mood, anxiety, or other difficulties with their health and wellbeing, with 45% saying that they find their job ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressful.

On mental health absences nationally, of the 45 forces that provided figures both this year and last year, 33 reported an increased number of officers being signed off for mental ill health. The highest number of absences were, unsurprisingly, reported by the UK’s largest police forces: the Metropolitan Police (2,054), Police Scotland (1,203), Greater Manchester Police (1,050) and West Midlands Police (1,162).

Andy Rhodes, Director of the National Police Wellbeing Service, said: “Catching mental illness before it escalates and addressing the issues that are causing things like work-related stress is of paramount importance.”

Policing is a high-stress profession, he said, with high levels of trauma exposure, demand and pressure, and the fact that so many officers are reporting sick means “we all must do more to prioritise and invest in prevention”.