There's a danger of undermining faith in person-to-person communication within the business.". The Metropolitan Police force is offering free psychiatric services to its officers to counter a rising tide of depression and anxiety. New figures show that the Met is losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in lost work time and compensation claims by officers suffering untreated stress-related disorders. The Metropolitan Police force is offering free psychiatric services to its officers to counter a rising tide of depression and anxiety.
New figures show that the Met is losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in lost work time and compensation claims by officers suffering untreated stress-related disorders. Police research shows that of the officers on long-term sick leave, at least 30 per cent have some form of mental illness.As a result, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has now personally approved the appointments of a psychiatrist and psychotherapist to reduce the sick-leave statistics.All officers who are off sick for more than 28 days will be offered the free psychiatric care in a scheme which is being piloted by the Met in a year-long trial.Last month a policewoman was awarded £250,000 damages after suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder following an accident on duty. WPc Angela Moore sued the Met after leaving her job when she developed a phobia of driving.Linda Van den Hende, occupational health business director at the Met, said officers working in child-protection teams and anti-pornography units were particularly at risk."This is costing a lot of hours, a lot of days and a lot of money," she added. "There has been a reluctance in the past for officers to come forward. The Met has suffered from a macho image, with police officers not being able to admit to the difficulties they are having to deal with.
The priority is to get these people well and back on duty."She added that most GPs were not trained in psychiatry and often prescribed anti-depressants which failed to deal with the long-term problems underlying mental illness.Police forces across the country have had a long-term problem recruiting sufficient officers, but the shortage is most severe in London and the South-east. That is due to the high cost of living and intensely stressful nature of the job in the Metropolitan area.The Government has spent £7m in a national recruitment campaign, including television advertising, to raise the numbers. But the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, was booed and heckled at last week's Police Federation conference when he claimed the recruitment shortage is at an end.Women officers are to be offered specially developed body armour, taking account of their breast size, after complaints that their lives have been put at risk by having to wear ill-fitting protective jackets. The armour has been produced in different cup sizes and will be launched at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) conference this week.Jackie Smithies, an officer with the Greater Manchester force, had surgical breast reduction so that she could wear her standard-issue jacket.The Acpo conference will also be addressed by Gurbux Singh, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality, who is expected to criticise the failure of police forces to sympathise with victims of racial discrimination.He will say that attempts to recruit officers from ethnic minority backgrounds have been hampered by the incompetent handling of race-discrimination cases.. Nudist camps across the country are to recruit child protection officers to allay fears the movement may be infiltrated by paedophiles.
