Better Support Needed On Suicide Prevention in Forces

Forces need to step up to record the numbers of police suicides and provide welfare support to officers, particularly those who are under investigation, the Police Federation of England and Wales Annual Conference heard.

In the session, ‘Code Zero: Policing’s Suicide Crisis’, delegates heard from PFEW national Health & Wellbeing Leads Richie Murray and Paul Williams, and Hampshire Police Federation Chair Spencer Wragg, who spearheads the STEP (Suicide Trauma Education Prevention) campaign.

Tragically the conference was told there have been at least 10 suicides of police officers and staff around the country this year.

Richie said he wrote to all Federation branches asking how many of their officers had died by suicide between 2022 and 2024. Two large forces are yet to respond, but so far PFEW has been told about 55 officers who took their own lives in this period, of whom 34 were under investigation. In addition, 120 had reported attempting to take their own lives, 71 of whom were under investigation.

Richie said: “There is a huge causal link between officer suicides and investigations. And I think everybody in this room will say investigations are taking too long, and that it has to have an effect.”

Paul agreed, saying: “We arrest criminals, we send them through the Criminal Justice System. We prosecute, they go to court, they serve a sentence, potentially a prison sentence. Now that criminal could be released back on the street a lot quicker than a police officer who's been served a basic misconduct form and put under investigation by their own force.”

In addition, forces should carry out a documented basic risk assessment on misconduct investigations and provide the officer with wraparound care, Paul said: “Allocating a welfare officer is sometimes just not good enough.”

Paul said that there needed to be “common minimum standards across the country”. He continued: “We heard yesterday that there's a postcode lottery of wellbeing in forces: 43 different Chiefs, 43 different personalities.”

PFEW has been successful is getting a motion tabled with the House of Lords to amend the Police and Crime Act to mandate the recording of suicide and attempted suicide in forces.

Another proactive step is for forces to put the free Stay Alive app from Grassroots Suicide Prevention on all officers’ work phones, said Spencer. Spencer spoke about how he and the Martis Media team have promoted the STEP campaign around the country and succeeded in getting the Stay Alive app put on 8,000 officers’ phones in Hampshire and Thames Valley Police. He said: “We're asking and pushing for Chiefs to put that on job mobile phones, which will cost them absolutely nothing.”

Richie added that Chief Constables also had a responsibility to look at officers’ workloads, stress levels and cancelled rest days, which all led to poor mental health.

Paul said that all Federation branches needed to push their Chief Constables to implement these changes and start recording suicides: “But it's a big fight, and I'm going to ask everyone in this room to join me and implore your Chiefs to push for this.”

It is important for officers who are struggling to know they are not alone, and that there are people there to help.

This includes, for immediacy, the Mental Health Support line from Oscar Kilo 0300 131 2789.