Policing the pandemic: chair’s praise for officers

24 March 2021

The chair of West Midlands Police Federation has praised officers for the way they’ve adapted to the pandemic over the last 12 months.

But Jon Nott fears the crisis could have a long-term impact on the mental health of both those who have been shielding or working from home, and those who have been office or station-based.

Jon was giving his reflections on the 12 months since the first coronavirus lockdown was imposed, and applauded members’ ability to adjust to the changes in rules and regulations.

He said: “Officers have adapted fantastically to all the changes and continued to provide a service to the public.

“There have been more than 60 changes to legislation in the last 12 months that officers have had to adapt to and police.

“This has made it really difficult to keep up with and, at times, confusing as there have been so many changes and at times different restrictions in different parts of the Force when we have had the tiers.”

But Jon said that even though people have adapted, he fears for the mental health impact of the pandemic.

“For those at home it’s been a long year,” Jon said, “With very little human interaction or change of scenery this could have a long-term effect on their mental wellbeing.

“For those officers who have remained in the workplace there’s the constant fear of catching Covid and taking it back to their families, dealing with the ever-changing regulations and members of the public who don’t want to comply with them and having to go into locations where there are large groups.

“These officers have also had people threatening them with Covid and using it as a weapon towards them. We’ve seen assaults against officers continue to happen at an alarming rate considering there has been a lockdown and no night-time economy.

“For both of these groups, there’s fatigue and burn-out from not having a real break from the workplace. Even though it has been possible to take leave, there’s nowhere for people to go, no change of scenery to get away from it all, unwind and recharge.”

Jon said that in the early weeks of the pandemic it took him a while for the realisation of the size of the crisis to hit home.

“I thought what was happening in the world was really bad but it was at arm’s length as there weren’t many cases in the UK,” he said, “Realisation hit home as the pandemic took hold and we started to see infection rates climb.

“The first lockdown started and you could see the sudden change almost overnight. As an organisation, we ensured our staff were able to work from home and adapted to the way we worked.

“Our full-time reps continued to come to the office, although we quickly had to adapt the way we worked. The Force and Federation switched to online virtual meetings as the rest of the country did.”

The Federation attended the Gold meetings in the early days of the crisis, which were split between policing response issues, and officer and staff issues.

“The Force was quick to obtain large amounts of PPE,” said Jon, “And while there were initial teething problems in getting this distributed, this was quickly worked through and the Force has always adhered to the changing guidance around PPE for officers.

“In particular, I must mention Dean Sweet, who has worked tirelessly to ensure there’s enough PPE in the Force in the right places so officers can always equip themselves with it when needed.”

Jon said the Force moved quickly during that initial period to ensure people could work from home and protect officers at work.

“The Force has followed guidelines in terms of working from home and those people who had to shield,” he said, “They brought forward the order they had for laptops and massively increased the amount the Force had to allow more people to work in an agile way.

“There were some issues around the initial distribution of these and, as all the guidance was brand new, it was a bit hit and miss across the Force but it quickly settled down as policies were introduced and adopted by the Force.

“Changes were made to stations and distancing was introduced to try to protect officers while they were at work.

“The Force has also set up groups for those that were shielding or working from home to try to keep them feeling part of the team and provide some different interaction.”

As well as the impact on the profession and how the Force operates, there’s been the personal impact on individual officers and staff.

Jon, who became chair of the Federation branch in November 2019, said: “Personally, I hadn’t really settled into the role when it all changed. I was lucky my children are high school age and were able to get on with their school work and didn’t need looking after.

“My wife is a deputy head and for us as a family not a lot changed in terms of work. She was constantly in school and our daily life continued as it had been, although we both had the worry of catching Covid due to being in contact with people.”

And Jon said that the easing of lockdown restrictions will mean further changes and the need to adapt.

“It’s been a difficult year for the police,” he said, “As we now move towards the easing of lockdown and the vaccination of the country there are still many changes that we’ll have to adapt to.

“We’ll be working with the Force as the workforce starts to return to the workplace and learning new ways of working that have worked well during lockdown.”