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Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/24/002689/T
Version Date: 15/01/2025
The Alliance People Department and Alliance Resourcing & Development Department have provided the following information.
These figures have been taken from our quarterly sickness reporting which contains the data as at the last day of the relevant quarter (31st Dec 23, 30th Sep 23, etc.) as it was recorded on the system at those times. Any individuals who were on ELB or External Secondment at the time have been excluded from the data.
Please be advised that the data within the snapshots does not have accurate working days lost in it, therefore any period of sickness that lasted longer than 5 calendar days has had a 5/7ths formula added to determine working days lost as accurately as possible (e.g. if the sickness period lasted 6 calendar days, 6 x 5/7ths = 4.29 working days lost). This is done to account for any potential weekends occurring within the sickness period, due to current system reporting limitations. This might not be 100% accurate as the data also does not take into account part time workers, flexible working patterns, etc. but it is how we are currently approaching our sickness data for working days lost for our reporting.
Total Sickness |
…of which was due to Mental Health |
Total Sickness |
…of which was due to Mental Health |
Total Sickness |
…of which was due to Mental Health |
Total Sickness |
…of which was due to Mental Health |
|
25 and under |
259.86 |
80.29 |
316.00 |
113.43 |
255.57 |
46.43 |
328.29 |
114.57 |
26-40 |
1588.43 |
699.00 |
1091.71 |
570.29 |
1534.43 |
733.43 |
1901.71 |
860.86 |
41-55 |
2733.57 |
1632.43 |
2206.29 |
1317.14 |
3095.57 |
2051.57 |
3438.14 |
2115.86 |
Over 55 |
97.43 |
64.29 |
58.86 |
47.86 |
128.86 |
105.71 |
205.43 |
47.86 |
Total |
4679.29 |
2476.00 |
3672.86 |
2048.71 |
5014.43 |
2937.14 |
5873.57 |
3139.14 |
CON |
3653.00 |
1936.43 |
2832.86 |
1526.29 |
3698.00 |
2122.43 |
4525.57 |
2314.86 |
SGT |
484.86 |
155.29 |
582.43 |
330.29 |
1133.57 |
714.71 |
1038.86 |
639.29 |
INS |
358.00 |
261.43 |
190.43 |
150.00 |
143.57 |
65.71 |
178.00 |
70.71 |
CINS & Above |
183.43 |
122.86 |
67.14 |
42.14 |
39.29 |
34.29 |
131.15 |
114.29 |
Total |
4679.29 |
2476.00 |
3672.86 |
2048.71 |
5014.43 |
2937.14 |
5873.57 |
3139.14 |
M |
3034.00 |
1527.86 |
2357.86 |
1390.57 |
2940.86 |
1827.57 |
3305.00 |
1766.57 |
F |
1645.29 |
948.14 |
1315.00 |
658.14 |
2073.57 |
1109.57 |
2568.57 |
1372.57 |
Total |
4679.29 |
2476.00 |
3672.86 |
2048.71 |
5014.43 |
2937.14 |
5873.57 |
3139.14 |
The mental health sub-categories within our sickness data detail the contributing factors towards police officer sickness as follows:
The force continues to be committed and financially invested to nurturing and supporting a healthy workforce. To facilitate this an established wellbeing strategy with the goals for each year linked to the overarching People Strategy and progress is reported on quarterly which focuses on activities to support mental and physical wellbeing.
We remain committed to supporting our people in the complex work they do and ensuring the best care is available if they become unwell. With increasing demands the Force is focused on ensuring workloads are manageable, supervisors can support their people and there is a good infrastructure in place when needed for more complex cases. A growing workforce, with increasing levels of inexperience need greater support and areas such as financial wellbeing support have grown hugely in recent years.
The force is also experiencing continuing financial challenges requiring additional savings over the next few years and is trying new ideas like introducing the ‘Right Care Right Person Model (RCRP) in 2024 as one of initiatives to manage the current demand and reduce demand pressures on officers which affects mental health and to make sure vulnerable people are dealt with by agencies with the expertise to help them.
In October 2023 a ‘Deep dive into Health, Safety & wellbeing’ was presented to the Workforce Demand Group to provide a detailed picture around psychological absence and use of services like Occupational Health Unit, the Employee Assistance Provision programme AP, Health Surveillance, and benchmarking with other forces. Several trends were noted highlighted including the increasing impact that workload/demands are having on staff. In addition to several initiatives in place to provide additional support and try to address this issue.
This confidential support service is provided for staff to access and arrange themselves, by requesting a Peer Supporter they feel they can relate to and get support from whether they are still in work, of sick or suspended. It can also be useful for line managers to refer their staff to as a practical support mechanism.
The force has an EAP provider who provides a range of support including 24/7 helpline with access to counsellors and up to 5 counselling sessions along with a range of other support.
The force has an inhouse welfare department who follow up with all individuals who report sick with work related stressors and are able to refer to a team of external psychologist and counsellors as appropriate.
The force has a wellbeing passport which is completed in conjunction with the line manager to look at putting in place support for individuals who are struggling in the workplace. If individuals return to work and work stressors have been identified as part of the issue then the HSE stress tool in completed in conjunction with the line manger to assist in a supportive return to work and to deal with particular stressors.
Roles identified as being psychologically stressful are provided with additional support. In Dorset appointments are face to face with an external therapist for regular review. There were over 400 staff in this programme in 2023
Along with the delivery of TRiM (Trauma Risk Management) across the force which assess and provides early signposting to those who have been exposed to significant trauma significant work has gone on this year to deliver a high level of support to those responding to the most traumatic incidents. Ongoing care, health surveillance and research with the National Police Wellbeing Service seek to best support our people but also provide national learning on how to ensure long term wellbeing following trauma. This includes the rolling out Police Traumatic Events Checklist (PTEC) to several departments to increase awareness around incidents being attended and to enable effective conversations with line managers.
The force has also trained control room trainers in Trauma Impact Prevention Techniques (TIPT) which they are currently rolling out to staff.
This training programme for all line managers to understand and support staff with different mental health conditions, how to have difficult conversations, and suicide awareness. This roll-out set up and coordinated by the wellbeing team has just finished with over 93% of line mangers having attended across the force by the end of 2023. Moving forward this will be available for all new managers.
Due to the increased pressures being experienced by many teams across the force and the impact on the mental health of individuals a range of inputs have been developed by the wellbeing team to support individuals, managers and improve resilience. Inputs are to a wide range of courses and to department which are struggling.
The wellbeing team oversees the delivery of these courses following a procurement process to ensure the force could continue to offer these to individuals across this force a procurement process has been completed and these are now running monthly, and this 1-day workshop is available to all individuals delivered by an external clinical psychologist.
This virtual, interactive festival of wellbeing called ‘WellFest 2023’ was expanded this year by the Wellbeing Team and offered nationally to other police forces. This two week event saw 8000 tickets be prebooked before the event which covered a wide range of wellbeing topics with over 50 inputs during the 2 weeks. 95% feedback from attendees identifying their experience as very satisfied or extremely satisfied. This covered a wide range of inputs on different aspects of mental health and wellbeing.
The wellbeing team ran the OK Van 2023 tour which took place for the fourth time over 5 weeks across both forces. It was well supported and manned by the Wellbeing team, OK9 Dogs, volunteers, Federation, UNISON, Chaplains and other staff. Advice and support were provided to individuals and themes identified.
This pilot was launched in July 2021 which was concluded in the last year after 280 visits and over 8400 engagements with staff in a wide range of scenarios from training days through to teams after the death of a colleague. There are now 10 dogs in this permanent provision coordinated by the wellbeing team.
The force has been providing inputs around finance and pensions over the last few years. In response to the increased pressures individuals and families are facing there has been additional inputs arranged and these have been recorded to make them available to all staff. A review has been carried out to look at additional support etc. An example of a local project was the awarding of a Wellbeing Grant to local policing areas to create food pantries for anyone in need. The force has also procured the services of ‘Finwell’ to provide a range of additional financial services. The wellbeing team provide inputs and coordinate activity around financial support.
The force completes an annual Pulse Wellbeing survey to provide updates on how the workforce are doing and look at the impact of interventions. In 2023 this has been replaced by the National Wellbeing Survey. The force paid the additional costs to get a breakdown of their results and be able to compare it to national trends which were extremely similar in most areas.
Over 2023 we held a virtual women's health conference covering Heart Health/Cancer/Managing Stress and Overwhelm/Breath Workshop, this was a collaboration event with local Councils. We continue to hold monthly Menopause Talk Cafes which have included several guest speakers talking about issues women may face during the menopause and during WellFest we celebrated World Menopause Day with sessions throughout the day online covering all aspects of health during the Menopause. A member of the wellbeing team is the menopause lead and oversee a menopause support scheme across both forces as well as arranging the above conferences.
In 2023 the force signed the national Mental Health at Work Commitment activity to support mental health is reported to the Occupational Health and Wellbeing Delivery Board which meets regularly.
First produced in Autumn 2021 and regularly updated since in partnership with L&D, Student Officers, LPAs, USW and Federation and there is a continued focus upon wellbeing, retention and supporting the individual needs of student officers throughout their development period. Recent plans being considered include the possibility of a second wellbeing input for students once they have spent a couple of months on the frontline to reinforce good habits around processing trauma etc.