Psychological Screening of Officers
Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.025825
I note you seek access to the following information:
Benchmarking request:
What psychological screening is done to monitor the officers mental health throughout service?
What psychological screening questions are asked to new recruits prior to joining the force?
What mental health provision is available in the force, e.g. counseller, mental health nurse, wellbeing team?
Decision
I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.
Please find below information pursuant to your request above.
Please see attached screening questions asked to new recruits prior to joining the force and below other information pursuant to your request.
What psychological screening is done to monitor the officers mental health throughout service?
A robust psychological monitoring programme is in place to help monitor select officers in high risk roles throughout their service with the MPS. This programme levers high quality clinical questionnaires with one-on-one clinical sessions between the officer and a force psychologist to ensure that any changes in the officer’s mental health are identified and disclosed early and treatment or appropriate interventions can be accessed as soon as possible. Beyond this programme, there are a number of proactive monitoring and support tools in place across the MPS to help officers monitor their mental health ranging from self-reporting platforms such as our Optimise platform, an online platform that tracks an individual officers physical and mental health as well as signposting to support when appropriate, to line manager led tools that seek to identify and manage team and role based-stressors and provide support in their management to organisational wide programmes such as our Trauma Peer Support and Blue Light Champions programmes that seek to provide a further bottom-up layer of support to officers and allow for colleagues to support each other and their mental health.
What psychological screening questions are asked to new recruits prior to joining the force?
New recruits, as a part of their recruitment process, are asked to complete an extensive pre-employment medical questionnaire, a notable component of which relates to mental health. These questions, based upon clinically validated questionnaires (such as the GAD-7 and PHQ-9) seek to establish the given individuals health history and identify if an individual will likely require, or benefit from, additional support during their employment. A copy of the pre-employment mental health questionnaire is attached to this response.
What mental health provision is available in the force, e.g. counsellor, mental health nurse, wellbeing team?
In our specific mental health team within the OH department; we have a range of different individuals including counsellors, psychotherapists, and psychologists employed. However these alone do not constitute the full clinical mental health provision provided by OH as our wider OH department includes OH nurses, doctors, health and wellbeing coaches and a range of other clinical positions, all of which are often involved in the provision of mental health support. Alongside the department, further clinical support is provided via services as our Trauma Peer Support programme and Employee Assistance Programme services that further diversify the mental health provision available to support the MPS officers and staff. Moving away from the clinical and into the professional/corporate space, it is important to note that a range of peer-led and non-clinical mental health support services exist to help further support the MPS’s mental health provision – a number of these are detailed above such as Trauma Peer Supporters, Mental Health First Aiders and Blue Light Champions; all of which have a range of skills that complement the provision of MH support across the MPS. Finally, resources are in place through both our wellbeing team and Knowledge Management processes to ensure that colleagues and line managers are upskilled in the mental health offers available and understand how to effectively refer or signpost into these.