Researching police wellbeing

By Professor Les Graham, November 2021

In 2017, in recognition of the uniquely challenging work and the stressful demands faced by the policing workforce, the then Home Secretary, the Rt Hon. Amber Rudd, awarded £7.5 million for the establishment of a new national police wellbeing service (NPWS). Since its launch, the NPWS has grown rapidly and is now being used by police forces across the whole of the UK.

In recognition of the rigour and impact of research conducted by the Durham University Business School Policing Research Unit in February 2019, the NPWS appointed me to lead a three-year research project to assess the wellbeing of all officers and staff in the UK (approx. 215,000 people). A further key aim of this research was to provide evidence and insight to guide future policy and practice on improving police wellbeing.

The first ever National Wellbeing Survey of Policing was conducted in November 2019. More than 34,000 police officers and staff across England and Wales responded (the research report is available on the NPWS Oscar Kilo website).

The research findings confirmed that urgent action was needed to support the wellbeing of the police service workforce. The levels of exhaustion and mental health of many of its members were found to be of concern.

Emotional energy - which refers to the amount of emotional and mental energy individuals have available to them to meet the daily demands and challenges they face in their roles - was found to be at a moderately low average level for police officers, while police staff reported a moderate average level.

An important factor in individuals' wellbeing is their ability to recharge their internal resources outside of their normal working hours, in order to recover the energy expended dealing with the daily challenges they experience in their work.

Prior research has shown that insufficient time spent asleep (less than six hours) and poor-quality sleep are strong predictors of exhaustion and reduced wellbeing. Almost half of police officers who responded indicated that they were having less than six hours of sleep a night, with those working shifts more likely to experience poor sleep quality.

Predictive analyses of the data confirmed sleep quality to be an important predictor of individual wellbeing and work effectiveness.

Poor sleep quality was found to be associated with increased general and mental fatigue, and lower levels of physical wellbeing. It was also found to negatively affect individuals' job and life satisfaction, and their levels of professional commitment and work engagement.

In response to these findings, Chief Constable Andy Rhodes, NPCC wellbeing lead and Service Director for the NPWS, commented: "The Oscar Kilo National Police Wellbeing Service team are already linking in with staff associations, wellbeing leads across the UK and experts from around the world to establish a specific area of work on fatigue as part of the national programme, to ensure we address this".

The second phase of the research was conducted a year later, in November 2020. Again, the full research report and commentary on actions being taken by the police service have been published on the NPWS website (see Oscar Kilo).

The CEO of the College of Policing, Bernie O'Reilly, commented: "We ask our officers and staff to do an incredibly challenging job every day. It's vital we look after them and importantly understand their needs and that's why this survey is so important".

As the second phase of research was conducted during the coronavirus pandemic, it was possible to investigate the impact of the pandemic, on officers and staff.

Although overall demand decreased during the pandemic, with a large reduction of crime occurring, the police faced the challenge of a new and unfamiliar role in public health policing.

While it was possible for many police staff to work from home, police officers were required to continue to work in communities and have close contact with members of the public.

While a relatively small proportion of police officers reported having high concerns for their own health, many reported concerns that their exposure to the virus may pose a risk to the health of family members.

At the time of the second survey, in November/December 2020, which was when the third national lockdown occurred, over a quarter of police officers responding to the survey reported that they had experienced Covid-19 symptoms.

Despite these challenges, on average the overall wellbeing of police officers had improved slightly. While over a quarter of police officers indicated that they still experienced high levels of fatigue, overall average levels of police officer emotional energy and sleep quality were found to have improved since the previous survey.

In contrast, there was a slight decline in the health of police staff. Specifically, the average frequency of experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression was higher than that reported in the first survey. Although home working was viewed positively by many police staff, they reported lower average levels of feeling connected to others in their work. Both police officers and staff reported feeling more valued by their force than they did in 2019.

Following the success of our previous two years of research in this area, my colleagues, Marisa Plater and Natalie Brown, and I were awarded a third research grant, bringing the total research funding for this project to £288,000. A third national wellbeing survey will be conducted in autumn 2021.

As much of the academic research previously conducted on wellbeing has used cross-sectional data, where variables are collected at a single point in time, a major limitation of the literature has been that cause-and-effect relationships cannot be investigated. The longitudinal data collected from this three-year research project will allow previous academic calls for research on the need to examine causality in the study of wellbeing to be acted upon. Applying this more robust research methodology is needed to confidently inform recommendations for changes to policies and procedures. These findings will be important to a wider audience beyond policing.

More information on Professor Graham's research interests.