Copped Enough marks Mental Health Awareness Week

12 May 2025

Copped Enough: Sussex Police Federation Branch chair Raffaele Cioffi Calls for Urgent Action on Police Pay and Welfare.

Today, marks the start of Mental Health Awareness Week.

Sussex Police Federation is backing the national launch of Copped Enough: What the Police Take Home is Criminal - a hard-hitting campaign exposing the crisis in policing that is endangering officers' lives and putting public safety at risk.

This is a week where we take stock and concentrate on our mental health.

Policing is in crisis when it comes to mental health. 84 per cent of respondents from Sussex Police indicated that they had experienced feelings of stress, low mood, anxiety, or other difficulties with their health and wellbeing over the last 12 months 

Police officers are exposed to significant trauma throughout their career. Yet police officers in the UK have lost a fifth of their pay in real terms since 2010.

The campaign calls on the public to support police and their families by joining a “digital picket line” in protest at www.polfed.org/campaigns/copped-enough.

The Reality for Our Officers: 

• Nationally, 10,000 officers will resign every year by 2027 - forcing the government to spend £9.9 billion recruiting and training their replacements just to stand still.
• 35% of police officers in England and Wales have five or less years’ experience today, a third more than in 2020.
• 84% of respondents from Sussex Police indicated that they had experienced feelings of stress, low mood, anxiety, or other difficulties with their health and wellbeing over the last 12 months, and 45% said that they find their job ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressful.
• 67% of respondents from Sussex Police said that over the last 12 months, their workload has been ‘too high’ or ‘much too high’

Locally, Sussex Police Federation warns the crisis is deepening, with recruitment and retention issues already impacting policing in our communities.