Police Federation National Board member Sarah Ennis has called on emergency services to take greater responsibility for preventing psychological harm in the workplace, rather than relying on support once people are already struggling.

The multi-agency panel explored how emergency services are supporting the mental health of their people, where progress has been made, and what more organisations can do to improve wellbeing.

The session was chaired by David Ware, Chair of the IFE Mental Health & Wellbeing in Fire & Emergency Services Special Interest Group. Sarah was joined by bereavement rights campaigner, grief therapist and author Lucy Herd, and Police Superintendents' Association President Nick Smart.

Asked whether emergency services are currently doing enough to support staff, Sarah's answer was clear.
“No, not yet,” she said. “We’ve made significant progress.

Mental health is discussed far more openly, and programmes such as Oscar Kilo, TRiM and post-incident support have helped enormously. “But we still focus too much on helping people once they’re struggling.”

For police officers and other emergency service workers, exposure to trauma sits alongside pressures including high workloads, fatigue, organisational stress and public scrutiny throughout their careers.

Sarah said the next step must therefore be to look at what can be done to prevent that harm from developing.
“We need to move from responding to harm to preventing it,” she said.

While individuals have a role in looking after their own wellbeing, Sarah argued employers have a significant responsibility because many of the pressures affecting mental health are shaped by the organisation itself.

“Organisations control many of the factors that can cause psychological harm, including workload, staffing, working hours, fatigue, traumatic exposure and access to support,” she said.

“Wellbeing cannot rely on counselling, resilience and individual goodwill. We need to create workplaces where psychological harm is less likely to occur in the first place.”

The panel also considered whether the UK should take a stronger approach to psychosocial hazards, similar to models being adopted in Australia.

Sarah said there was real value in treating psychological risks with the same seriousness organisations already apply to physical hazards.

“Emergency services are very good at identifying and controlling physical risks,” she said. “Why shouldn’t we apply the same discipline to psychological risks such as excessive workload, fatigue, traumatic exposure, bullying and chronic stress?

“It moves wellbeing from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to a genuine organisational health and safety responsibility.”

Bereavement and significant loss were also discussed, with Sarah highlighting the importance of recognising grief does not fit neatly into organisational policies or timescales.

“One thing we sometimes underestimate is that grief doesn’t follow a timetable,” she said.

Support, she argued, should not simply end when someone returns to work or their period of bereavement leave finishes.

Anniversaries, inquests and other events can bring difficult emotions back to the surface months or even years later, making the response of supervisors particularly important.

“People may forget exactly what their supervisor said, but they will remember how supported they felt,” Sarah said.
For Sarah, that quality of day-to-day leadership is one of the most important parts of improving mental health support across the emergency services.

Asked to identify a single intervention that could make a genuine difference, she pointed to well-trained and informed supervisors.

“A compassionate supervisor who knows their people can notice when something changes, check in, have difficult conversations and connect someone with appropriate support,” she said. “Policies and programmes matter, but the quality of everyday leadership can make an enormous difference.”

The discussion also turned to the stigma that has historically surrounded mental health in policing and other emergency services.

Sarah said significant progress has been made, but concerns remain for people considering asking for help. “Yes, it has changed, but it hasn’t disappeared,” she said. “We’ve moved from silence towards conversation, which is hugely positive. But people still wonder: Will I be seen differently? Will this affect my career? Will people still trust me operationally?”

Changing that culture, she said, depends on people being able to see that asking for help does not come with negative consequences.

“Stigma really changes when people see colleagues asking for help, receiving support and not suffering negative consequences as a result.”

Asked what practical change people could take back to their own organisations following the session, Sarah suggested something simple: have better conversations.

“Ask every manager to have a meaningful wellbeing conversation with their people,” she said. “Not a tick-box conversation. Ask: ‘How are you really doing? What’s putting you under pressure? What could we actually do to help?’

“But importantly, listen and then act. That’s what builds trust.”

Sarah said while emergency services have become much better at discussing mental health and providing support when people need it, the next stage must be tackling the conditions that contribute to poor mental health in the first place.

“We’ve become much better at talking about mental health, and better at supporting people when they struggle,” she said. “The next step is prevention.

“We need to treat psychological health with the same seriousness that we treat physical safety.”