Occupational Health in policing is still in its infancy. Although police forces nationally and internationally have had medical support for personnel, the occupational health proposition for the police remains to be defined.
Most top-performing organisations recognise the importance of employee wellbeing. Research carried out on behalf of Business in the Community (BITC) found that 100% FTSE 100 companies report some element of employee engagement and wellbeing. The BITC Workwell benchmark was developed after research showed that there was a positive link between strong people management and organisational performance. FTSE 100 companies with robust reporting arrangements for employee engagement and wellbeing outperformed the rest of the FTSE 100 by 10%. A holistic approach to organisational wellbeing is captured in the BITC Workwell model. However, even amongst FTSE 100 companies the level of reporting for the different elements of the model varies. Better specialist support for employees, which includes occupational health, has the lowest level of reporting, at 68% in the research.
Historically, many employers have seen occupational health as a necessary business overhead in order to comply with health and safety legislation or, in some cases, as part of a paternalistic culture. This was part of a narrative that work was dangerous and occupational health helped mitigate risks to workers' health. Even as part of a risk management system occupational health was a reactive component responding to the occurrence of injury or disease. As the wellbeing agenda has ascended the list of business priorities, health promotion and ill health prevention have come to the fore. Although some occupational diseases remain as important challenges for health and safety enforcement, work-related illness rather than disease is now the main occupational health challenge. Such illnesses, for example low back pain and stress, are not confined to the workplace and occur in the general population. Lifestyle and health behaviours are now part of the equation when considering prevention of work-related conditions. Health education encompasses life at work and life outside of work.
Occupational health in the police must meet the wellbeing challenges of twenty-first century policing. Police forces continue to need a workforce that is physically and mentally fit despite being exposed to an increasing range of physical and psychological traumas. Occupational health specialists need a detailed understanding of operational policing as well as a comprehensive grounding in the specialty of occupational health. The publication of Occupational Health and Wellbeing for British Policing: A Primer will be an important resource in this respect. There is no similar book on the market at present. It will also assist police chiefs to understand occupational health and to build the occupational health proposition that will underpin strategic planning and the optimisation of workforce support.
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