‘Officers at risk of burn-out’

12 June 2026

Officers are in danger of burning out due to the pressures currently being placed on them, says the deputy chair of West Midlands Police Federation.

Mat Minton joined officers on Wolverhampton Response for a late shift on Tuesday after spending the day at the Bilston Street station with the Federation roadshow.

Demands

“The pressures and demands placed on police officers are high,” Mat explains, “As a long serving officer with 23 years working on Response, I appreciate the role is always challenging.

“However, this is by far the most difficult period I have known. It is more important than ever that we acknowledge the pressures on officers. They are our greatest resource, but we are in danger of them suffering from burn-out.”

Mat says he joined Response on a normal Tuesday evening, outside the school holidays and with no specific events taking place but, not unusually, they had run out of officers by mid-shift and were reliant on using Neighbourhood Team officers to meet demand. 

“During the course of the shift, two officers were assaulted and injured. From my perspective, I was double crewed with a professional and clearly very keen young officer,” he explains.

“We went to a couple of jobs before attending an incident mid-shift where we felt the need to bring a child into police protection. The pair of us worked on this case for around four to five hours, and it culminated in a phone call to the relevant agency advising the child be returned home, despite our reservations and concerns. 

Copped Enough

“Collectively, my partner and I spent nearly 10 hours dealing with this matter and, within 15 minutes, all the hard work, negotiation with families and relationship building with the child had become mainly irrelevant. As an aside, this also included taking our refs in front of the computer, as I saw many of the other Response officers doing.”

Mat says his experiences with Response illustrate the importance of the Federation’s Copped Enough campaign which is calling for fair pay for police officers, support for frontline links with a P-Factor allowance recognising the dangers they face, plans to keep officers on the beat with retention measures not just recruitment, and better protection and mental health support.

As part of the Copped Enough campaign, the Federation is also running the Hands Off Our Rest Days initiative and is urging officers to join a virtual picket line to raise awareness of the issues they are facing.

Officers were able to sign up to the Federation’s digital picket line during the Federation roadshow on Tuesday.

Healthcare

Branch chair Jess Davies and Matt were joined at the Wolverhampton LPA by representatives of Bluline, a healthcare scheme designed for police officers, staff and their families, and member services partner Uniform Mortgages.

“Members have already shown their support for the Copped Enough campaign by signing the digital picket line, but we are now out and about talking to officers about the Hands Off Our Rest Days initiative too,” says Jess, “We are embarking on a travelling digital picket line tour of the Force area.

“In our own Force alone, almost 60,000 rest days are owed and nationally it’s almost 820,000 rest days which is shocking in itself but you have to consider that these missed rest days mean that officers have not only been unable to spend time with their families but they have also been unable to rest and recharge which, given the day to day challenges they face in their jobs, can have a major impact on their physical and mental wellbeing.”

The Federation is warning the Government that proposed changes to rest day protections would be a betrayal of a workforce already pushed beyond breaking point.

Under current regulations, officers called in on a cancelled rest day are entitled to a minimum of four hours’ pay at time and a half, recognising the disruption to their lives.

Tighter rules

But the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has asked the Government to scrap that safeguard, replacing it with time and one third, calculated in 15-minute increments, paid only for the exact minutes worked.

Chiefs also want tighter rules on how rest days are re‑rostered - despite widespread evidence that many forces already fail to return the time owed. A recent Federation poll showed 85 per cent of officers oppose the changes.

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