Triggers for mental health breakdown and self-harm in overstretched police officers are being routinely missed, according to their representative body in Scotland.
The warning comes as the Guardian reveals a “startling” increase in the number of absences due to psychological disorders.
On Wednesday, senior police chiefs will hear directly for the first time from officers who are unable to work because of mental ill-health, at a meeting set up by the chair of the Scottish Police Federation, David Threadgold.
“I wanted to really personalise this issue rather than asking them to look at more charts and figures,” he said.
Data obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests shows that absences caused by mental ill-health have nearly doubled among officers across Scotland in the eight years for which amalgamated figures are available, rising from 610 in 2015-16 to 1,154 in 2022-23, accounting for about 7% of the force.
Absences due to psychological disorders had nearly tripled among police staff, growing from 222 in 2015-16 to 620 in 2022-23.
The data also confirms that, between 2013 and 2023 to date, 14 police officers and three police staff have killed themselves.
At a meeting of Holyrood’s criminal justice committee in June, Fiona McQueen, from the Scottish Police Authority, said there was “deep concern” about the level of suicides among officers and staff.
Threadgold described the suicides as “tragic” and offered his condolences to the families affected, though he cautionedthat it was not clear why these individuals killed themselves.
It was crucial to understand the reasons behind the rising numbers of absences, he added.
“We are missing so many triggers,” he said, pointing to the erosion of the link between constables and sergeants, their first line managers, as critical. “Officers may go for days or weeks without meaningful contact with a supervisor because of the incessant demands of the job, and that has a cumulative effect.
“We are not robots. We deal with people and circumstances that can be horrendous. There is no training that can prepare you for that so we have to make sure we have mechanisms to look after our people who are regularly exposed to this type of incident.”
The relentless demands made of officers, a recruitment freeze on support staff, reduced officer numbers, and a move to online training were all challenges to providing meaningful support, he said.
Along with funding pressures – which led off-duty officers to stage an unprecedented pay protest last week – the force is under increasing scrutiny after reports of misogynistic bullying and the former chief constable’s acknowledgement that Police Scotland is institutionally racist.
Police Scotland said: “The wellbeing of our officers and staff is absolutely fundamental,” and set out a range of training and support, including a telephone helpline for those absent with mental ill-health, the peer-to-peer wellbeing champions network, resilience assessments for high-risk roles, and sessions with a clinical psychologist for those in crisis.
Threadgold said the feedback he had received from officers was that these schemes “don’t have buy-in and there’s still a stigma in asking for help as well as a lack of opportunity for managers to have preventative conversations with their staff”.
He said the federation was forced to refer officers to charities for support because the provision through existing occupational health was insufficient, a situation he described as “simply unacceptable”.
The Scottish Conservative justice spokesperson, Russell Findlay, who has worked with bereaved families, said the tally of officer and staff suicides in the force’s first decade was “truly heartbreaking”.
“I’ve spoken with friends and families of officers who died from suicide and there is anger about the lack of mental health support, but also at the reluctance by the authorities to acknowledge or discuss the scale of the problem.
“It’s startling to also learn that the combined number of officers and staff absent from duty due to psychological issues has more than doubled in less than a decade.
“These figures confirm what they’ve been saying for years – that they’re under immense and growing pressure, and routinely taking up the slack for other public services. This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
The deputy chief constable Alan Speirs said: “Working in policing is a job like no other and our officers and staff find themselves in situations which can be stressful, traumatic and can have a lasting impact on them.
“Police Scotland is determined to continue to drive improvements to support our people.”
• In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978
