\u201cPOLICE officers are knackered, they\u2019re burnt out, they feel like they are not offering a good service. Officers are shattered before they even start their shifts.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the stark warning to the Police Federation of England and Wales\u2019 Annual Conference this week.<\/p>\n
PFEW Roads Policing Lead Jayne Willetts led a session to discuss the growing problem of officer fatigue, and she admitted to delegates she is frustrated by the issue.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cWe are so short on numbers and demand from the public is never ending, yet we cannot fulfil the basic need that we all have to take a quick bite to eat, have a rest, just chill out for 10 minutes. Police officers say they don\u2019t even have the chance to go to the toilet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like the idea of officers telling me they\u2019re taking work home because they don\u2019t have time to do it on shift. Officers are working on their annual leave so they can catch up.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when they do want annual leave they are told they can\u2019t have it for months. It\u2019s no wonder people are off sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers are not being taken seriously when they say they are tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
The breakout session also heard from psychologist Dr Paul Jackson, who is an expert in the effects that fatigue can have on shift workers.<\/p>\n
He told delegates: \u201cFatigue is not something you can overcome by willpower. When you\u2019re fatigued you need sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot do shift work without being fatigued. But it means we need better understanding of the causes the extend of the problem and what we can do about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople working shifts have cumulative sleep difficulties. If you\u2019re working shifts you\u2019re changing your body clock and it has a cumulative effect. All of this is exacerbated by operational demands.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that people working shifts have cumulative sleep difficulties \u2013 particularly on night shifts when officers are trying to sleep when their body clock thinks they should be awake and alert.<\/p>\n
Delegates also heard about a vicious cycle of fatigue caused by cancelled rest days and delays in taking annual leave entitlement.<\/p>\n
Dr Jackson added: \u201cRest days are days that should be kept sacrosanct to enable you to recover from previous days\u2019 work and enable you to prepare for following days.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are working on rest days you are reducing your ability to rest properly. Staffing issues are a real challenge, but if you don\u2019t manage fatigue we get a vicious cycle and the situation will only get worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cPOLICE officers are knackered, they\u2019re burnt out, they feel like they are not offering a good service. Officers are shattered before they even start their shifts.\u201d That was the stark\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}