Inside policing episode four – Wellbeing and health at work

Hello and welcome to the official College of Policing podcast. My name is Rob Flanagan and every episode, I'll be joined by frontline officers and experts to discuss the issues affecting policing in England and Wales today. So I'm down here at the National Police Wellbeing Service Conference. And joining me in the room now is Andy Rhodes, who's the Director of the National Police Wellbeing Service, Oscar Kilo to some of you. Andy, thanks for this chat with me this morning. Before we go any further, let's give people the opportunity to meet you, hear about your role and how you've ended up in this role as the Director for the National Police Wellbeing Service. 

My job used to be Chief Constable Lancashire. That's where I finished my service. But relevant to Oscar Kilo, about eight years ago, we were asked to set up a wellbeing group when wellbeing wasn't even a word. Not many of us knew what it was, and some people still don't today. But we set up a small group to have a look at it and over the years, we've developed into Oscar Kilo, the National Wellbeing Service, and all the things that we do now. So I retired and really glad to say that I'm still part-time involved with it, which is fantastic because we have got a lot to do. Been on a good journey so far. Well, the thing with wellbeing is your job’s never finished. So we want to take it from strength to strength. Really glad to have the opportunity to talk to you about where we've come from and where we're heading today. 

And so why wellbeing? From the perspective of Chief Officer, I imagine there was probably a number of options around the things that you could lead on in policing, or was it more of a case of you had to really make a fight to be able to lead on wellbeing? 

It’s a good question actually, because I'm atypical of most police officers, I think. I didn't even see what effect the job was having on me. And I thought, you know, I'm loving this job. I do – I still loved every minute I did in the job – but it all came to a head for me. I had personal challenges. I got divorced. Part of the reason for that was that, you know, the job had got the better of me, if I'm honest. I was superintendent at the time and early doors on this agenda, you need to role model and be authentic about why you're in this because it's that type of agenda. Mental health is a very sensitive issue. And I remember going to superintendent's conference and I'd dug a picture out from the Blackpool Evening Gazette of myself when I was a superintendent, just before I got divorced. And it's an horrendous picture, you know, and I put it up on the screen, you could see people going, ‘Who's that?’ And I said, ‘That was me’, you know. And when my wife, now second wife, who's a psychotherapist, looked at that picture when I was doing the slide deck, she said, ‘That's really sad, that picture’. I looked really sad in it. So I came into it because I'd completely ignored my own wellbeing and mental health at work. I’d ignored everybody else's, including my family’s, quite frankly. And I had a train crash, and the job I saw from a completely different perspective when I was struggling. All of a sudden, people would dive into broom cupboards to avoid me when I was walking down the corridor. It's a wheel that keeps moving, policing. And if you’re seen to fall off it, it can be very difficult to get back on. It can feel very isolated. So after that, I started a load of work about my own personal development. And Mike Cunningham actually was then chief in staff, said, ‘Look, we need to address this issue in policing because more and more organisations are switching on to it’. And that's how we came into it.  

Our first episode was all about the officer staff safety review and cops being assaulted, and how that has a real impact on how they do their job. And that was all about how we look after those who've maybe suffered trauma or those who've been assaulted. But wellbeing is much more than that, isn't it, Andy? Wellbeing covers a whole variety of things within the organisation. 

It's got a bit of a pink and fluffy tone to it, hasn’t it – wellbeing – which disguises the fact it's the toughest organisational work you do. That's why a lot of executive teams are up for it. It's hard because it's all-encompassing and it also spreads into people's personal lives. So whether we like it or not, we don't leave our personal lives at the workplace door. You've seen that in COVID. All of a sudden, we've found out that people have got caring responsibilities. They've got a child that's like clinically vulnerable, and they haven't even told people at work about it. It's affecting their behaviours and their emotions and their performance at work. So world-class organisations get it, we’re 24/7 people. So it doesn't really matter what the issue is that's affecting your wellbeing. The important thing is that as a human being in an organisation – and this is like the top people that do research on wellbeing, say – does the organisation, does my line manager, does my boss actually look like they care? Yeah? My parents developed dementia and I'm struggling now. Are you with me? My phone’s going at work all the time, I’m distracted. Does the organisation care? And what happens is with it, of course, particularly in policing, you give a huge amount of discretionary effort about what you do, whether that’s putting yourself in danger, working extra hours, the compassion you give to people and your colleagues and victims and what have you. So you think your credit in the bank’s pretty high. Are you with me? I'm doing all this stuff and you don't even know I'm doing it. I'm stopping cars at three in the morning, putting myself at risk. I'm working in a support service role where I'm really doing the best to keep this organisation going. The minute I want to be cut a bit of slack or a bit of sensitivity, it doesn't look like it's there. You lose faith and ultimately that's what wellbeing is about.  

So what are we not doing in policing then? What can we be doing more of? Or where do we still need to keep banging at the door?  

We do not do onboarding. That is a huge issue and it's proven to make a massive difference in terms of those critical few months and years when you first land in an organisation. We promise a lot, you know, when we're advertising for people to come and join us. So I think onboarding and that's been recognised nationally that we've got to get better at that. The second thing is – and this isn't just us, by the way, and I'm not being critical of people who haven't got naturally higher levels of emotional intelligence – but we have not got sufficient emotionally intelligent managers and leaders yet. I wasn't either, right? You’ve got to take responsibility for it. Anybody who says they’re emotional intelligent isn't, because you can't say that. It's a lifelong job, isn't it? So you've got to get that. And I think that's one of the opportunities with what we're talking around in terms of wellbeing, because it asks a lot more of people.  

And are there ways in which you think that the National Police Wellbeing Service can assist in those areas specifically? 

I think we are at a turning point. So the Wellbeing Service has got a big interest in what we will call hindrance stressors, organisational stressors, the sort of work you've been working on in the College. And we recognise that there's a parade room management responsibility around this, but there's also a strategic issue around how this information comes into our organisation and whether or not we're using the same sort of technology that other big organisations are, so that we can deal with it in a different way. The amount of failure demand in the system is huge, isn't it? You know, in terms of what we're dealing with. So that's just the nature of where we are in policing at the moment, so the Wellbeing Service picking up on our annual survey. We've got it on the Covenant, the Front Line Review. I'm talking a lot now to Home Office, College of Policing and NPCC all the time now to land the fact that we need to see what technology can do to help us with this, as well as the leadership management. 

So technology, leadership, what else makes up that perfect wellbeing picture within the organisation? 

Well, I think this is always a sensitive area, but personal responsibility. Nobody knows me as well as myself. And as I described to you earlier on, I didn't know myself at all, which is why I got myself in a real old pickle and probably hurt a lot of other people along the way – not least people who used to work for me, no doubt. So I think if you're going to come into this amazing job, and it's a courageous step to take, comes with the responsibility of looking after your own physical and psychological health as best you can. And you cannot expect the organisation to do that all for you. So we see, don't we, a lot of things coming out in the world of wellbeing, like apps and, you know, wearable technology and all this sort of stuff. And people seem to be getting more interested in looking after themselves and finding out what data they can get. And I think we should capitalise on that because there's a real trend in it at the moment. I'm not particularly a fan of running people up and down a gym once a year in between two white lines to see if they can get to seven minutes to see whether they're actually fit enough to do the job. I take a more holistic view.  

And there's a big challenge there, isn't there, in trust and confidence because, as a police officer, if we want to be able to use more advanced technology to ensure that our staff are fit and well, but also to pick up on the things that maybe they haven't picked up on, then we're going to require much more trust in those in the job to give us that information as well.  

Yeah, and I think, okay, we're not ever going to be where we want to be in terms of that level of trust. I do see – and this is in a lot of the survey data – more people saying, I feel confident to speak up. That's not my survey. That was the Fed survey, a massive increase. So people are sticking their hands up to talk, which is great. That's taking responsibility. The organisation deal needs to step up to meet it. So I think we are seeing people taking more responsibility and I think we need to let go a little bit of some of the ideas we've got that we need to control certain things that we can't control. We cannot control each other's mental health. We can't control how much debt you decide to get yourself into or your relationship issues or whether you're not eating a good diet or you're living with bad sleep. All these things we can help you a certain amount with, but we can't fix it. This is person-centred care. Person-centred care is about accepting uniqueness. That one size doesn't fit all. But the flip side of person-centred care is that only you have your answers. I accept that I do not have your answers. And that is a really weird management mindset because we’re ‘solutioneers’ and cops are fixers, we like to start and finish, get a result. That's why I’ve loved being in the police, because that's how I am. ‘Person-centered’ is all about facilitating someone else's journey. So I see the Wellbeing Service as facilitating the services journey because chief constables run police forces, we don't run police forces. We help show them what works. We provide expertise. We provide the vans, the dogs, the clinical stuff, and we lead horses to water. But they've got to drink, as has every individual.  

It appears to me that everything that you've done, apart from the odd conference, like we're at now, but day in, day out, you're going to people in forces rather than them coming to you. 

Yeah, we have had a police officer park the van between the back door of the nick and the response vehicle at some remote police station. Never sees the wellbeing campaign headquarters, yeah? Lure them in with a cup of tea and a biscuit and a friendly face – from the force, not us, the force staff it, the Fed, the Police Mutual people, the occupational health and what have you. And they do a blood pressure check and find out the blood pressure’s that high, they have to go straight to A&E and they’re on the way to a job. Or they do a psych risk assessment and they disclose suicidal ideation in the last two weeks and they’re on their way to a domestic. When we were setting up to get some funding to start a proper outfit, I got a phone call off somebody in the Home Office who said, ‘We don't just want a strategy on a piece of paper’. And I was driving in to work thinking, God, what we're doing here is developing a strategy on a piece of paper. Because all the research and stuff’s fine, isn’t it? And I believe what I say, I came in and said, ‘Buy a van’ because Staffordshire had one. And I said, ‘You’re going to have to park the bloody thing on the car park’, which is what we've done, and the fleet is amazing now in terms of what it does.  

Andy, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate you coming in having a chat to us about the National Police Wellbeing Service. And just to say to you, if there's anything else you want to tell us about the service, now is your opportunity. 

Well, all I'll say is, folks, that we are getting this on every agenda we can. It’s on the Police Covenant. Very early days for Police Covenant but that's all about supporting officers, staff, their families and into retirement. And we are day one on that in this country. We have got a seat at that table and we're pushing this agenda through all the right places so it doesn't become, as Peter Kay says, yesterday’s garlic bread. 

Brilliant. 

Alright, thanks Rob.  

Cheers, Andy. 

I've managed to grab hold of Garry Botterill. Garry works with the National Police Wellbeing Service and he's in charge of the area called OK9. And I'm going to let Garry describe what OK9 is because I won't be able to do it any justice. But before we get there, welcome along to the show, Garry. You're also a serving police officer yourself, aren't you?  

Yes I am, Rob. Thank you for inviting me. Yes, I am a serving police sergeant, but I'm on secondment to the National Police Wellbeing Service and coming up to my full year. 

And so you've been working in Sussex, you've come over to the National Police Wellbeing Service and now you're running a service called OK9. So to start off, tell me what OK9 is and what does it do in the National Police Wellbeing Service? 

So OK9 is, as you might expect, about dogs and they are wellbeing and trauma support dogs. So the wellbeing aspect is a general wellbeing of officers and staff and then the trauma aspect is they do help in situations following trauma and they're available to members of staff and officers in the event of a serious situation. 

And this isn't just something that you've been doing in the police, is it? You started this long before coming into the National Police Wellbeing Service. 

Yeah, I run a charity. I'm the Operations Director of a charity called Service Dogs UK, which is the only accredited PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] assistance dog charity in the UK for members of the armed forces and emergency services. 

You have with you today one of your dogs, don't you? Who've you got with you today? 

Yeah, I've got my little girl, Poppy, who's just over a year. She is a rescue dog from the Dogs Trust, but she's also an Ambassadog for Service Dogs UK, our assistance dog charity. And she's also – and I’m probably going to get told off for overworking her – but she's also an OK9 wellbeing dog as well. But that's a role that she loves. 

Sounds like a fantastic service. How many OK9 dogs and handlers do you currently have in policing? 

It's been growing every week, week upon week since we started. We're now getting up to almost 100 dogs now. My goal, if you like, is by the end of this spring, April 1st, we’ll have 125 dogs. 

Fantastic. So 125 dogs. And does each of those dogs have their own handler?  

So the dog is only 50% of the package. The other part is the handlers and they are specially selected. They are peer supporters, trained. Most of them have got other skills. They may have been on suicide awareness courses and Defuse or TRiM [trauma risk management] so that they're able to listen empathetically and, if needed, signpost them to support.  

And the handlers, will they have had a dog prior to having an OK9 dog or do you source the dog for them? 

Yes, so each force runs their scheme slightly differently, as you might expect, but basically, they all sign up to our standard operating procedures and risk assessments. They have a service level agreement in place, and it's really important that the dogs are assessed for their suitability, but also the handlers are also assessed as being suitable. Many of these people do it voluntarily. We have got a few people who are doing it full-time. But the most important thing is that when people require the dogs, that we have got sufficient to get them there and give people that support. 

Tell me more, then, about these dogs and what they do. We've got trained professionals who are their handlers and they come into the place of work, usually in a police station or to any place where you've got police officers and staff. This isn't just a scheme where anybody in policing who has a dog can bring it into work, is it? 

No, definitely not. Most of the schemes are run through the wellbeing team in each organisation and that's where they've sort of identified the right people with the right attributes for the job. Most of these people are really passionate about looking after the dogs. The kind of dogs that we're looking for, they don't have to be brilliantly intelligent. They just want to like a cuddle, to be smoothed, to be petted, and to share that all important oxytocin, which lowers stress levels and gives you a bit of a dopamine hit and makes people feel better. What they bring is we work the dogs within the police stations, they wear the jackets, they're immediately recognisable with the handlers, and they act as a furry bridge to a conversation. We find that when we’re doing mental health awareness or we're trying to break down the stigma surrounding mental health in the workplace, the dogs are really, really good at getting to those hard-to-reach people because they'll want to come and engage with the dog. And once we start having that conversation, then, you know, other things that may come out of that conversation. When we're talking about mental health, it actually really is useful for a dog to sort of highlight the issues that some people have. We've got some great handlers who talk about their own personal problems that they've had. As a result of that, it's allowed other people to open up and talk about things that are important to them. 

What's your long-term view with these dogs then? Where does OK9 go next? 

OK9 is already embedded within the National Police Wellbeing Service, as far as going out with their wellbeing vans. We've been supporting officers and staff following tragic events. We're going to be doing more of that, but we're also looking at other aspects and other things that we can do in the community. We're finding that some of our dogs are engaging brilliantly with difficult people who may not be overly supportive of the police. And the dogs are sort of breaking down the barriers there, but also within the criminal justice system and various other things are happening, which are allowing our dogs to gain a wider audience and get a bit of love from the outside world. 

So it sounds like there's not many areas where a dog can't help. I haven't got a dog. I'll be completely honest with you. And if you spoke to my wife, she'll tell you that she's constantly trying to get a dog for us. Tell me from a personal view, Garry, what is it that these dogs bring into the police station? What is it that they bring to individuals and to members of the community? 

We have feedback forms and I've now got hundreds and hundreds of feedback forms. And the main thing that strikes me is the dogs, as they come into the room, they lighten the room, they lighten the mood. They allow people to step back from their desks or take time out from what they're doing and spend some time. And as I said earlier, you know, interacting with a dog is proven to make us feel better. It makes us happier. Long term, working with a dog, interacting with a dog increases our resilience. And that's only going to be a good thing for us. 

Absolutely. Well, you've nearly convinced me to get a dog, Garry. I'll keep thinking about it. There'll be lots of people listening to this episode – police officers, staff and also maybe people who work with policing in different areas or are very interested in working with policing. They might ask, how do I become a hander? How do I get an OK9 dog? What advice have you got for those people? 

Yeah, I'd advise them to go through their wellbeing team to see if such a scheme is already in existence. And if not, then contact Oscar Kilo and we'll look at helping you to get set up. So that's my role is to help the forces to get their scheme set up in their area. What we tend to find is that a scheme gets set up and they start off with a pilot scheme with one dog and the demand is so great, they end up with more dogs. It's really good to see that it is proving so popular and that people are really enjoying it and giving such great feedback.  

Garry, thanks so much for your time this morning.  

Thank you, Rob. 

And all the best. 

And I'm pleased to say that Catherine Pritchard joins us now. Catherine, thanks so much for chatting to me today. I want to pass this part of the show over to you and let you, in your own words, tell your story about your journey in policing over the last few years. 

Thank you very much. Okay, so I can't believe it, but I have actually got 29 years’ service now. And five years ago, I was diagnosed with grade three triple negative breast cancer. And shortly after that, I had a series of chemotherapy and then a double mastectomy. And I was one of the fortunate ones and recovered through that, had a year off work and did go back into work. And my journey after that is really what I'm keen to share today. 

And why is sharing your journey so important to you? 

Well, I was fortunate, through a positive mindset and fabulous medical intervention, that I got through it and I'm here and fit and healthy after a five-year all clear. So my risk level now is the same as everybody else’s, which is a massive relief and a celebration these last few months. But after I was diagnosed, I was treated very well by work, by Cheshire Constabulary. I was treated very well by them. And when I got back to work and it was a progressive return, which I can talk about later, I realised speaking to all the people, not everybody's journey after ill health – or even during, because there's two really important phases here, Rob, there's the one while you're off work and you can slip off people's radar and there's the one when you get back to work. So there's two distinct phases. And I realized as I started chatting about my story, when I did feel strong enough, I realised that not everybody has been as fortunate as me. So it got me thinking, ‘What happened in my journey? What is happening to other people?’ 

Let's take your story first so we can put some context around some of the things that people maybe go through. It was 2017. You'd been a cop for 24 years. You were just making the transition from one job to another, which actually also included you making the transition into a new force. Is that right? 

That's correct. I was in HMIC and on the same day I'd had the result that I was passed the promotion process to chief inspector, I had the call from the consultant to say, ‘You have grade three triple negative breast cancer’. So it was a day of really two halves. So I really was stuck as to what to do and I didn't know the force at all. I emailed the chief constable because I didn't really know who else to contact and shared my news that way because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know anybody there. That's how my journey with them started. 

You’ve such a mixture of emotions that day, from the highest of highs to some of the lowest of lows as well. So you've made the bold step of actually just going straight to the top and saying, ‘I need to speak to you about what’s happened’ to the chief constable. And how did that conversation go? 

Oh, I was really honest, but they were behind me from the word go, and that made a real difference. I've been doing policing so long. When I was seven, I decided I was going to be in the police. I've never done anything else, so it's part of me and it was part of what I saw as my future. So the fact that they were behind me and when I had my real dark moments and I felt I was valued and I felt they were looking forward to me coming back. 

Tell me about your family. Who’s at home? 

So I've got Spence, my husband, at home, and I've got two girls, who were ten and 12 at the time. So once I was diagnosed, that in itself was a tale of how to tell them. I made sure that I didn't want to worry them. The key was to assure them that Mummy didn't have cancer because I had the lumpectomy, had the lump removed and the tumour removed. I said, ‘It's all in the hospital now. I've just got to get better. I won’t have any hair for a while, but it's all done now and you need to help me get better.’ And that's how I phrased it. And they were hard moments, but I wanted them to be on the journey with me and not disguise or lie about anything but be quite bold about it within a positive framework. 

And in terms of the treatment then, over that 12 months, what kind of treatment did you go through and how did that affect you in terms of your own health? 

Oh, it was horrendous really. I had six sessions of chemotherapy, which is debilitating, and I lost my hair. I had four separate operations. And then I had a double mastectomy. That was all within eight months. I had 86 injections and I think 56 medical appointments, all in that short time. So it was intense, but I was determined to get through it. I was determined to continue to be a good mum, wife and to know I had work to go back to. It wasn't obviously in the forefront of mind when I was thinking, ‘I hope I survive this’ but it was certainly, as I started to get better, it really helped. 

All of those appointments, operations, the chemotherapy. Was this all accessed via the normal routes of the NHS or were there any kind of support for you as an officer done through occupational health? 

No fast-tracking. It was all done through the NHS because it was grade three. There's only four grades. I think that there was an urgency about it. I wouldn't be here now if they hadn't have acted quickly, which is where I just want to say something before we go on. The lump I found was the size of a peppercorn. So tiny. So tiny. I thought, ‘This won't be anything’. And I was left in the room with everybody else gone and I thought, ‘Maybe it is’. That’s really to change and check every time everybody, could save your life and save your family. You know, we all mean a lot to a lot of people. 

And sat here with you now, you genuinely would not ever know what you've been through. You talk about losing your hair, I can see a full head of blonde hair on your head in front of me, and you're looking fit and healthy as well. And it's fantastic to see that, you know, you really can make such a full recovery from this. What are you doing now in policing to help other people? 

Well, I'm on a secondment, so I do a normal full-time role as part of the Uplift Programme. Obviously, I'm very dutiful at work, but my heart is to share my story with others, to share what worked for me and what I've seen hasn't worked for other people, as an awareness to others. I had one officer who turned up on my doorstep with some garage flowers going, ‘I'm not sure what I'm doing, but whatever you need, I'll help you get it’. And it meant such a lot. And we had a coffee and I had my wig on. I had a lot of wigs. And then from then on, you know, I’d text him every Friday what I needed, what I didn't need, how I was, because I knew in lots of ways, although he was dutiful, I've not heard from him since he resigned. We're not friends or anything. But I knew I was on his list of things to do, so I wanted to make sure that I met the organisation halfway. You know, I drove that agenda because I wanted to feel looked after, but I knew they had a lot else to deal with as well. But that worked because I wasn't thinking when he was going to contact and he wasn't worried about contacting me, and that really works and it could sort the problems out so I could survive and fight for my life. 

You've had a very positive experience from the organisation on the support, but I'm sure there's ways in which they or other forces have sometimes maybe not been as on the ball about something. And that's part of the work that you do now, isn't it? Is you listen and support other people who've been going through similar experiences in forces, and try and answer some of their questions. 

Yeah, very much so. We're in the police. We want to make a difference. I work with kind, generous people with big hearts. And yet sometimes I see the process strangles the good intent. One lady I was helping, she had 23 generic letters to a home address without even a name on it. Somebody left a voicemail, well-intended, going, ‘Hiya, just to let you know, you’re on half pay next week’. Next week, she couldn't afford to insure a car to go to Christie’s the week after for a radiotherapy and was devastated. And just where do I go? I did a quick video link and she just phoned to say, ‘What would you do?’ And that's how it started really. She is an inspirational character that wants to do well, that thrives, that wants to be professional and wants to get back to work.  

Policing is a huge organisation and the very, very mixed experiences that people get would happen in probably most organisations of the size of policing – over 250,000 officers and staff up and down the country. We've got 43 police forces. So very often we have 43 different ways of doing things and that's relevant as much as it is to wellbeing and looking after our staff as it is to computer systems and custody systems, for example. Is your experience from some of the stories that you've heard that consistency is required across the board and, if so, is some of your work looking to improve some of that as well? 

I think the shared good practice is the key and treating somebody as an individual. So do a little bit of research on that type of cancer and listen to their needs and their interaction so that it would be, like you say, a consistency but simplicity of listening according to the needs. It's hard to get total compliance or a regular way to deal with it because everybody's journey slightly different. But there's some simple key messages or a way you can log on to find out, ‘Gosh, that's how they dealt with it. I'm going to try that.’ The key thing, I think, is listening to them and having a consistent way of, you know, pockets of good practice.  

Speaking from a line manager perspective, before I left policing, I was a sergeant. I've managed staff since in my various roles. I suppose half of this for some people is finding the confidence and the courage to use the right words, as you say, and have a conversation about something that very often is just maybe they feel awkward or maybe they feel uncomfortable. They don't know what to say. 

Exactly. And the one of the stories I heard only a few weeks ago was a really well-intended inspector was sort of saying, ‘Is it boob or is it breast?’ And then awkward laugh, you know, and I think we should have moved on from that, really. But that's just training and nervousness that this person wanted to do really well. We're surrounded by kind people with hearts of lions, really good, bold people, but they want to do well. But it's lack of awareness, really. And then the same individual said, ‘You must come back eight hours’. But that's not the case. It's often according to their need. They can come back eight hours, but often it's a progressive return while they adjust to the work environment, and just small things like that would have totally altered that person's return to work and the way they felt about work. And there's still, you know, the repercussions of that.  

This work that you do with forces, you call them the cancer talk cafés. Tell me about how those work. 

What I love about them is they've been on Zoom, they can have the camera on or off because if you’re at a point of hair loss, you might not feel well enough to go into headquarters. And the last one we had, there was 25 there and one patient logged on – camera as well – from the hospital bed, so frustrated that they couldn't contact the force and they couldn't get to the bottom of why they were going to be on half pay again. They couldn't afford their mortgage and it was a real worry to them. And that really struck home. It really did. Very, very powerful. So we were able to chat and look at ideas and I contacted the other departments. It only took minutes, but it was a way in that they weren't sure who to contact or have the energy. 

And is that part of, I suppose, part of the service that you provide, or is this something that you want to try and improve within forces, so that there are people to be able to do that on behalf of others? 

I suppose it's a yes to both. I have intervened because I can see it's so straightforward in front of me and if it's there in front of me, I would never not. But I think as we get better, we will then be able to say, can you deal with this? And they will have more people that can then, as you say, have those conversations. Your health is everything, health is everything. So let them get better. Let's us take the weight off. I do feel that some days I couldn't lift my head off the pillow. I couldn't see, I couldn't focus. And I know other people are going through it recently, who’ve had to be rushed into hospital because the blood count’s wrong, they can't think about pay, but they're still got to live somewhere. And often these people have lives and families that are struggling too. 

You have a good experience through this. What do we do well in the cops? Because we do do a lot of things very well. 

We do a lot of, well, when people have come back to work, we look after them well I think. I think what's the back-in-work presented and if they have the confidence to say how many hours they want to do, I think we're very good at that progressive return. Once people are back, we're surrounded by people that care, get in the right office space and once everything is identified and labelled, then we're good at that. What we're really good at is if it's been the same team for a long period of time. Using my example, I wouldn't have had to think, ‘Well, who shall I phone?’ I’d just phone my line manager. And if they're experienced, if they've got contacts within HR and if they're well linked up to know what occupational health does, if that goes well and they're confident and experienced, then we're really good at taking care of them.  

We're really good at doing teamwork, aren't we?  

Yeah, teamwork. 

I can understand the challenges for those who maybe are newer to teams or maybe aren’t part of a big team within policing because it's a one-person role or there may be a new line manager started a couple of weeks before, so they haven't got that connection with them. And I suppose from your perspective, one of the things that you're trying to push across forces is that consistency, is that ability that actually, even if you don't know the person very well, there is still a level of service and care that you can give them that they would expect anywhere, no matter where they worked. 

Yeah, very much so. There was an example not so long ago when a sergeant – fairly young to the rank, not young in age – went round to see somebody that had just been diagnosed and then took a call in the middle of asking them how they were and left for a while and then came back. The person going through it was really hurt, but that wasn't the sergeant's fault. But it was obviously an urgent call they had to make and they maybe not have been given the time to switch their radio off, switch their phone off, be aware of this, take the time in their head to think about what they're going to say. And all I feel you would need is somebody to say, ‘Right, somebody diagnosed there. Pull people aside that are managing them and brief them. Share some experiences with them. Give them time to deal with that person, say, “How are you? What can I do for you?”’ Job done. 

And if you can, turn your radio off, etc. 

I think when you're in a time of high emotional alert, you remember what people say. You really remember how people made you feel. 

I wonder what advice and guidance you might have for individuals who might be going through, or might go through in the future, similar to yourself and also to any line manager who might be listening, what they can do to support their staff as well. 

Yeah, I think for the person going through it, be as bold as your health will allow. Tell the organisation, meet them halfway. What do you need? When do you need? Be really honest how awful you do feel, about how often. Tell the organisation or your line manager what works for you, what you can and what you can't do. What I found really helpful was crafting each day so I had one little pleasure pocket each day, something to get me through it. I have horses. Something I love is being outdoors and being with my horses every day. But it be a coffee in a magazine, whatever is, have a something you look forward to every day. That's what helped me get through it. With regard to the organisation, be bold and honest about how you’re feeling and what you need, and keep that communication line open. Get that one person you can relate to that can cut through other things, one or two people, so you don't have to go through and be put on hold. 

I can tell you now, Catherine, you really are an inspiration. So thank you so much. Well done on everything that you’re doing. And I know that the people who will appreciate it most will be the people who need it most, and those joining your cancer talk cafés and the bravery that you’re showing to be able to share your story with other people and hopefully not just inspire them, but also help them get through that process themselves as well. So, Catherine, thank you so much for sharing your story with me and with the people listening. And I just wish you the very best of luck in the future. 

Lovely. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. 

Thank you. 

You join me now back at the conference and I have managed to corral five people into the room. 

Hi, I'm Liz Eades and I am a consultant, and I work for the National Police Wellbeing Service as an occupational health subject matter expert. 

Hello, I'm John Harrison. I'm senior medical advisor to the National Police Wellbeing Service. I also work for Devon and Cornwall Police. I was the Chief Medical Officer for Devon and Cornwall Police until November, when I retired and decided to go part-time. 

I'm Zoe Davenport. I am the lead on the National Psychological Risk Management Programme. 

I’m Eleck Dodson and I'm an independent occupational health advisor supporting the National Police Wellbeing Service. 

Hello, I’m Julie Feakin, I'm the same as Liz. We're all consultants and we're employed as subject matter experts in occupational health. 

I love having subject matter experts in the room because it means that between you, hopefully you can answer all of these questions that I've got. Just tell me, what does occupational health mean and what does it do? 

Okay. Well, occupational health is a specialism within the world of clinical health and wellbeing. When you're thinking about occupational health, you're thinking about the effects of work on somebody's health. How does the job they do affect them? And it's also about how somebody’s health may affect their work. That's a really, really basic definition.   

We're also now recognising how work can have a very positive effect on people's health. So we want to use the opportunity to promote good health and wellbeing. 

What type of incidents, what kind of support might you give to police officers and police staff in that area of work? 

Okay. Well, I mean, clearly, we know that policing is a massively diverse occupation these days, so all sorts of incidents can potentially impact upon people. I'll take a physical example. I mean, clearly, someone can be assaulted at work. We would then be looking at the physical implications of that assault. First of all, making sure that they are properly supported, and obviously using the National Health Service to look after them. But then following that up, looking at the implications for how it affects their ability to function at work, maybe looking at adjusting people's duties temporarily, giving them time to recover. And also looking at the mental health aspects of this as well, I mean, clearly there's potential psychological impact on someone being assaulted and just making sure that that follow-up is there immediately, but in the longer term, so that people have time to recover and get back to their full duties. One of our roles in occupational health, which I think has developed in the last few years, is to help people understand if they've got a health problem, you know, what's going on and we can, up to a point, assist in making diagnoses and help signpost them to additional help. And what we found in some forces is that where there have been real pressures in the National Health Service system, in terms of getting to see consultants or getting diagnostic facilities and so on, some forces actually make funding available and occupational health can actually signpost people to that. So I think as we go on and as the health service continues to be under pressure – and obviously COVID's not helped that – I think we're kind of working in parallel with GPs sometimes and we can supplement, but not replace, the National Health Service. 

Are these all salaried people within policing, every force, or are some of these, for example, contracted out? 

The vast majority of forces employ occupational health personnel directly. But there are some forces who do it differently, and they may contract out their service to a provider. A lot of forces do a bit of a mix, actually. They generally have core members of the occupational health team. The nurses specifically will be employees. And then what they'll do is bring in specialist services. It’s what we call a blended approach. All occupational health services need to have a doctor. There needs to be that governance around the service. A lot of services will bring a doctor in through an external contract because they're not full-time employees usually. But then they will have their in-house nursing service. They may well buy in their counselling services and their psychotherapy services, and they may well again buy in physiotherapy services if they want to do that. So it's very much a blended approach. 

Does a police officer or member of staff have to be referred into somebody at occupational health, or is this something that most of them could access any time in their career? 

It's a really good question and it depends on a number of things. Most of the time, people will have an interaction with OH at the beginning of their career, just to check that they're healthy and they're fit to work. But there are times where if people are injured on duty or they are absent for some health issue, that their managers decide to refer them into occupational health for assessment. We often refer to that in the business as ‘assessment of fitness to return to work’. And that's something that we often provide managers and the officer or police staff member with advice about how to get back to work. So there could be a good piece there to support people with going back on reduced hours, for example, or gradually. Again, it's a service issue how people access OH. They may be able to self-refer themselves. Some will only take the route of management referrals. It depends what the force OH service decides to provide and pay for. We can use recuperative duties, which will help people who have been either injured or have become unwell. And we know that they are, in time, going to get better, are going to improve. So you can use recuperative duties to modify either hours of work or type of work, commensurate with the assessment of what they're able to do and actually using workers as a therapeutic aid. Or we can use what used to be call restricted duties. We call them adjusted duties now, which actually recognises that people are not going to get back to being 100% fit but they're going to be, let's say 90% or 80% fit. They might have to do something slightly different depending on what the problem is. But they can carry on effectively being either a police officer or a member of police staff because of the varied nature of policing. 

This does really go far beyond physical capability as well, doesn't it? Because I imagine there's a very, very fine balance here between somebody returning to work and returning to the job, but also the need they may have psychologically to not return to work or the fact that they're not ready to return to a certain type of role. And there's lots of roles we could talk about within policing that cover that. How is that managed? Is that an occupational health role as well, or is that something that you do in collaboration with other areas of the police force to make that decision? 

That's a really good question. And I think that what we do is when we're thinking about somebody and what they're able to do, it has to be working in partnership with the force and with management. We can make recommendations about somebody's ability to do something, but ultimately management have to decide whether they can accommodate that within that particular team or whether they have to think outside. So what I’d like to think is that where occupational health work very much in partnership with the officer or the member of staff and the management. Ultimately we want people to work to their optimum, even if it isn't 100%. That's our objective really, is to get to that point.  

One of the things that characterises police occupational health is that recognition of the psychological impact of ill health, whether it's primarily a mental health problem or whether it's another sort of problem, and having the ability to assess the mental health aspects and the mental wellbeing aspects, a lot of which is about confidence. It's about the fact that people's confidence to do whatever it is, that they have the emotional resources to do it and to work with them, and also to liaise with more specialist help to try and help us in that assessment.  

Yeah, I think I'd be really interested in picking up on a couple of pieces there that you talked about assessing the psychological ability to return to work, particularly. I know this is an area that you cover, Zoe, isn't it? 

Yes, so I run the National Psychological Risk Management Programme. Basically, we have a questionnaire which has been designed for policing specifically, which is a collection of individual clinical tools, which has a look at people's fitness, their lifestyle, their mental health, how well they’re sleeping. It's all different things. So what we do is we identify roles which are more at risk from kind of exposure to trauma and stress, and get police officers in those roles to fill in a questionnaire. And then we can identify if anybody needs extra help. 

What kind of roles are we talking about then? 

People who look at distressing images, which crosses a number of different groups, firearms, police negotiators, road traffic investigators, and so a number of people who deal with some of the traumatic events. We know from data that already exists that there are certain roles which are more exposed to trauma. There's a lot of data behind the decision making, and we've gone out and risk-assessed roles individually to make sure that we're seeing the right people. 

Let's talk then about how all of this comes together, all of your work into the National Police Wellbeing Service. What is the work that you do within the National Police Wellbeing Service? 

One of the areas that they were particularly interested in were some standards in occupational health, looking at how occupational health was done across the 43 Home Office forces. So we developed what we call the National Foundation Occupational Health Standards for police forces. And this is a set of quality standards based around a number of areas like how they conduct their business, what sorts of people they have delivering the service, what types of relationships they have with the organisation, how they have relationships with their workers, the officers and the staff, what sort of premises they've got, what sorts of facilities, what equipment and all that sort of thing. So these are basic quality standards. And we developed these using a set of already well-established standards that we looked at and we made them police-specific. And those were published in 2019. We fully accept that forces are still working towards the foundation standards. We've been doing some analysis of the submissions. These will come in through the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework. We're seeing really where we can help. The idea is that we will engage with forces, help them in certain areas. We're developing a knowledge hub so we can guide them in particular areas where they may have some gaps. They need to understand their gaps and then we can help them to fill them. 

What drives us is the passion that you talked about in the introduction to move from 43 examples of silo working to a much more national and coordinated approach. And we're going to use our standards really as a form of continuous quality improvement. So as a bare minimum, we expect all forces to adhere to the foundation standards because they are, in all honesty, pretty minimal, even though at the moment we know that some forces probably don't comply with them. And we're going to help. We're going to provide information, we're going to build this community of practice. So we want to create a situation where not only is occupational health good value for money, but we want to get a situation where we're actually adding value to forces, and we can only do that by developing networks, developing relationships within the force so we understand better.

Julie, tell us about what you lead on and then put that into context of the work that you're doing with the National Police Wellbeing Service. 

I was Head of Service for a five-force collaboration. It soon became very apparent to me that in order to be able to work efficiently in occupational health and be valued, you actually had to meet the business needs of the organisation as well. So it was a bit about us saying how we actually support the Police and Crime Plan. Each force police and crime commissioner develops the plan in consultation with the force but also with members of the community, and it's what's important to them. So it could be something as simple as, ‘We want to see more officers on the beat or we want to see more visible policing’, and we in occupational health play our part in that. We are part of the recruitment process to have special constables and PCSOs who are very visible. One of the areas in the Police and Crime Plan is all about victim support and trying to encourage the communication with victims and certainly as occupational health teams, we do quite a bit of work there when we recruit people such as detectives and also the civilian interviewing roles as well. And for the firearms officers, they need to have regular medical checks in order for them to go and pick up their armoury and carry the gun. And without those medical checks, within occupational health, then they wouldn't be able to go out and do that. So we really feel as if we play a big part. And I would go as far as to say that we help support policing at a frontline level. 

I really like this and it's not something that I've ever thought about before because we focus very much internally on looking after our staff. But also, we do have a responsibility to the public, to the promise that our police and crime commissioners make to our communities, to say that we will give you the best, the fittest, the highest capable officers and staff so that we can reduce crime and ensure that your streets stay safe, and that vulnerable victims are looked after by the most able people. 

Yeah, absolutely. I think we are asking people to police officers to do jobs which are extraordinary. And they deal with the vast majority of the general public on what tends to be the worst day of their life. We need to make sure that in return, we support them to be able to go back out and do that day after day. From my perspective of working in occupational health and to provide a space where police officers could come and talk about the things that they'd seen and dealt with in a safe space, knowing that they wouldn't be judged. And you were able to hear it because often they don't go and talk to their partners or their wives or their friends about what they do. And you need to have a space, I think, to offload a lot of that stuff. So I think OH, it should provide that space where police officers can come and offload some of the horrors that they deal with. 

So what are we seeing as a practical example of how the business of occupational health is being built into, for example, the Police and Crime Plans? Is this something that the police and crime commissioners will then be making a statement about to members of the public? 

I think it's down to us to make the link of how we add value to that. So, particularly the recruitment of staff, the government just made an assurance that they're going to recruit the number of police officers – without having the occupational health team there to actually undertake that recruitment, that wouldn't happen. So whatever your targets are within the Police and Crime Plan, unless you've got the maximum amount of resources there, you're not going to be able to meet that target. So I feel that not only are we supporting the individuals, in that we try to provide extra support – it might be physiotherapy, might be psychotherapy – but there is a business need for doing so because we're returning people back to their usual roles to be able to carry out that important work and to help to keep communities safe.  

I think one of the things that is often overlooked is the importance when strategic decisions are being made by police forces or policy has been formulated, that there's a wellbeing component to this. I think, often, policy is developed in response to a specific need and it's a case of, well, we need to do this and we don't necessarily focus on the impacts of people's wellbeing. And so I think one of the important roles that occupational health has is to be part of that conversation, so that there's a kind of wellbeing impact assessment, in the same way as we do an equality impact assessment to make sure that whatever decision is made – and we accept that sometimes difficult decisions have to be made – there's an understanding about the wellbeing impact. So we either make policy that safeguards people or we accept that we are going to put people at harm and we mitigate that.  

Can I just say thank you so much to every one of you for this conversation? I've already learned a lot about occupational health and what it does for our officers and staff. From me, to each of you, thank you very much. That's all we have time for in this episode. But if you'd like to find out more information on this subject or any of the issues we discuss on the College of Policing podcast, then head over to the website, college.police.uk. Please also check out our extensive show notes, with links and signposts to help you broaden your own knowledge, evidence and research for each area that we discuss on this podcast. You've been listening to the official College of Policing podcast with me, Rob Flanagan. I do hope you will join us again soon for the next episode, taking a closer look inside policing.