Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
- The number of police officer suicides for 2018 and 2019.
- Statistics for assaults on police officers for 2019.
- Are there measures within the police organization to help support police officers with mental health problems?
- Do you have a police officer and staff mental health policy and if so please could you provide a copy?
- What is the number of individual police officers within your force to have been medically retired, specifically on mental health grounds for 2019.
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with both the People Services and Corporate Development Departments of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
1 No information held. We do not record this data.
2 Total assaults on PC’s during 2019 = 817.
3 Yes.
4 Northumbria Police do not have a specific mental health policy but do have a stress management policy and procedure.
In complement of our new wellbeing and people plan all areas of wellbeing are being reviewed and developed to ensure they are relevant, supportive and in line with national best practice.
The mental health of our officers/staff/volunteers continues to be a priority for the force and the planned work in this area throughout the coming months may see the development of new and supportive policy.
Currently the support we offer surrounding mental health sits within our wider people support function and is captured within the stress management policy.
5 During 2019, 2 officers were medically retired due to a mental health condition.
