Staff and mental health 1006/2024

FOI Reference: 1006/2024

Request:

1. How many officers and staff working for your force are currently waiting for mental health treatment? Please list the figures for police officers and staff separately.
2. What is the current average waiting time for an officer working for your force to see a mental health professional in Occupational Health (not a nurse or other staff member). Please also provide the annual average waiting time every year since January 1st 2020. As the current year is not finished please provide the 2024 average to date.
3. Does your police force keep a record of the number of officers and staff who die by suicide? If yes, please provide the total number that have died as a result of suicide every year since January 1st 2020, broken up into officers and staff. As the current year is not finished please provide the 2024 total to date, again broken up into officers and staff.
4. How much money has been spent by your force on mental health provision, every year since January 1st 2020? As the current year is not finished please provide the 2024 total to date and the end of year estimated spend.
5. How many mental health trauma specialists does your force currently employ? Also, broken down into separate years, how many mental health trauma specialists has your force employed since January 1st 2020?

Clarification Q:

With regards to Q2, Can you please clarify if you are referring to psychologist/psychiatrist or counselling services or both?

Clarification A:

I was refering to both.

Response 1:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does not hold the information requested, this is due to the fact that there are no waiting times to see a counsellor, they are booked into the next available appointment which is usually within a week.

Response 2:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does not hold the information requested, this is due to the fact that we do not have any waiting list for counselling we use in house, ad hoc external as well as EAP (employee assistance programmes). Psychologist/psychiatrist services are only accessed privately if required, again there are no waiting lists for this as we refer straight away if required. There are no waiting times to see a counsellor they are booked into the next available appointment which is usually within a week.

Response 3:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

No.

Response 4:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

Please note, the amounts are made up of staff salaries for MH Nurses and Counsellors. The fluctuations are due to vacancies.  

Response 5:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

We currently have 2 full time mental health nurses (these are recently employed, these posts did not exist in 2020), 2 part-time in-house counsellors who are trauma counselling trained (1 of these was recruited last year, this post did not exist in 2020).

We also use ad hoc external counsellors if needed depending on location due to geographical size of Force. These were also used in 2020.

If appropriate we also use EAP provided by Vivup. The company Care First was used in 2020.                                          

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 18/11/2024)