Industry spotlight – Well-Being in the Police Service

The Police Service is potentially one of the most stressful places to work in the UK, particularly in front-line policing roles or ‘999’ control rooms. In recognition of this, and in response to high levels of sickness absence, The Home Office launched the Strategy for a Healthy Police Service in 2002. This involved providing £19 million of funding to police forces in England and Wales in order to drive down sickness absence and improve levels of well-being.

Each force was asked to bid for funds by laying out clearly how they would spend the funds and what benefits the various activities would deliver. It was as part of this initiative that Robertson Cooper started working with several forces and we have now conducted well-being audits with 17 UK police forces. This has involved gathering data from more than 20,000 police officers and staff, providing a clear picture of well-being in the UK Police Service.

We recently pulled all of this information together in a paper outlining well-being trends across the whole Police Service. We found, in line with Home Office statistics, that forces we are working with have achieved a reduction in sickness absence as a result of the investment. We also found that, as of 2006, perceptions of health in the Police Service appear to be no worse than in the general working population.