Shocking Rise In Police Suicides: A Crisis Ignored.

Many officers out on our streets today have experienced mental health problems. Yet, they still strap on their boots and go to work and put their community first.

A wave of despair is sweeping through UK policing. New data reveals a grim trend: more serving officers are dying by suicide than by homicide, and mental health struggles are reaching alarming levels.

• Between 2011 and 2022, 242 serving police officers and PCSOs in England and Wales took their own lives—with 80 further suicides recorded between April 2021 and January 2024 according to the Police Federation of England and Wales.
• On average, around 21 officers die by suicide each year, compared to about 16 killed by homicide in 2019—making suicide 5.3 times more likely .

The recent deaths of numerous officers across the country has prompted urgent demands for better trauma support, including mandatory sessions after exposure to suicides or other distressing incidents our emergency services deal with.

Police chiefs and Federations are struggling to keep pace with a rising mental health crisis:

• Over 65,000 sick days were taken for mental health reasons in UK police forces over the past three years. In 2023–24 alone, 14,500+ officers and staff received time off for anxiety, stress, PTSD or depression—marking a 9% rise on the previous year and more than double the figure from a decade ago.
• In the Metropolitan Police, 2,453 officers and 922 staff members reported mental health-related sickness in 2024—resulting in almost 144,000 lost working days due to anxiety, trauma, depression, and fatigue .
• There were 372 referrals to occupational health within the Met in 2024 that resulted in a formal PTSD diagnosis .

The causes are multifaceted: trauma exposure, relentless work pressures, low pay, and minimal support. The “STEP – Suicide Trauma Education Prevention” campaign—which calls for mandatory stress-debriefs after traumatic scenes—has gained endorsement across forces, launched by the Police Federation.

National efforts are also underway:

• The National Police Wellbeing Service introduced a suicide prevention action plan in mid-2024, backed by key policing bodies, and piloted 24/7 mental health crisis lines in several forces.

Yet, for every policy, there remains a lingering question: does it go far enough?

Because behind each number is a person. A mother. A father. A friend. A colleague. They attended a suicide scene. They responded to violence. They carried the weight of expectation—and sometimes lost themselves in the process.

Policing is among the most high-risk professions in the UK—not just on physical danger, but on mental health. And still, this silent epidemic is too often ignored.

Not enough is being done to support officers with their mental health and it is also believed officers are being told to take annual leave days instead of sick days, when dealing with mental health issues. Officer suicides are not even recorded, the final insult.

So many serving officers experience mental health problems, and we know one in five suffer with PTSD or CPTSD, yet here we are again, losing more officers. Many officers out on our streets today, have experienced mental health problems. Yet, they still strap on their boots and go to work and put their community first. Very rarely do others stop and think-‘I wonder how many endless traumatic incidents has this officer witnessed and yet here they are answering another call for help’.

Something needs to be urgently done.

What needs to happen now:

1. Mandatory trauma counselling for every officer after each traumatic exposure, not just on request.
2. Nationwide availability of 24/7 crisis support, not limited to pilot areas.
3. PTSD and trauma tracking, to identify at-risk individuals before it’s too late.
4. Immediate action on officer welfare—improved pay, rest, and workload limits—to prevent breakdowns.

Because every life lost is one too many.

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