Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what mental health support his Department provides to police officers who have responded to a violent incident.

Each Chief Constable has a duty to manage and support their workforce effectively, ensuring the welfare of all officers and staff.

The Government takes the issue of police welfare very seriously and has invested in programmes which offer help directly to officers and staff. In July 2017 the Home Office awarded £7.5 million from the Police Transformation Fund to the College of Policing over three years to pilot and, if these pilots were successful, roll out a dedicated national service to help provide enhanced welfare support to serving police officers and staff.

Following two years of development and piloting, the National Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS) was launched in April 2019. The NPWS has developed evidence-based guidance, advice, tools and resources which can be accessed by forces, as well as individual officers and staff.

The NPWS will help forces to improve the mental health support they provide to their officers and staff, including following violent incidents.