Restrictive duties criticism response
05 February 2007
Responding to restrictive duties articles today, Jan Berry, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales said,
"I wish to make it clear that the Police Federation does not support anyone who abuses the system, but we will fight to ensure that police officers injured whilst protecting the public are not further abused by the system.
Many officers are in a catch 22, where they wish to return to fulltime duties but are prevented from doing so due to long-term illness. The logic would be to retire these people on ill health pensions but there is an underlying policy not to do so.
People such as Teresa Millburn, Rachael Bown and Guy Miller are some of the police officers behind these statistics, and I am sure no one would want to swap places with them as they recover from the physical and mental injuries sustained on duty"
Notes to Editor:
-
The Police Federation does not support anyone who abuses the system, but we will fight to ensure police officers injured whilst protecting the public are not further abused by the system.
-
The Daily Mail headline appears to be at odds with the article itself. People such as Teresa Millburn, Rachael Bown and Guy Miller are some of the police officers behind these statistics, I am sure no one would want to swap places with them as they recover from the physical and mental injuries sustained on duty”
-
Policing is a dangerous occupation. According to our 2006 membership survey over 40% of officers were assaulted whilst arresting suspects in the last two years; nationally this equates to 56,000 police officers. Between ’04 -‘05 the HSE reported assaults on police officers accounted for 635 injuries. It is hard to assess how accurate these, or indeed the new Police Review figures, are as many police forces do not seem to keep accurate records. What is clear is that officers are confronted by many dangerous situations while on duty.
-
Officers need to be fully fit to undertake a full range of police duties. Restricted duties and rehabilitation arrangements are designed to get officers back to work in a medically managed process. Force Medical Officers should be managing this process, ensuring officers are supported throughout.
-
Following the civilianisation of many police posts there are fewer opportunities for police officers to undertake non-confrontational duties following illness and injury.
-
In recent years there has been a reluctance to retire officers on ill health retirements despite preferring to redeploy to non-confrontational posts whilst retaining their experience within the service.
-
The Police Federation has long campaigned for better and more consistent officer safety training for officers across England and Wales, it has become clear that the necessary training to help officers carry out their role safely, depends entirely on the location of the force on which they serve.
-
Police Officers take less sick leave in comparison with the public sector in general
- The healthier policing strategy was introduced during Police Reform 2002. The aim is to reduce sickness levels, maintain health in police staff, to reduce injuries and ill health and help officers return to work.
Click here to download this press release in PDF format