'Police officers are human, we're not robots'

A police chief has shared how "incredibly challenging" working in the force can be after recent figures showed 211 officers in Dorset were signed off last year.

Chris Wood, chair of the Dorset Police Federation, said he has had to take time off for stress and also revealed his wife, a serving police officer, is currently off with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Freedom of Information figures from Dorset Police showed 211 officers had been signed off due to stress, depression, anxiety or PTSD in 2024/25.

Mr Wood's comments come as a National Police Wellbeing Service helpline has been launched where officers can talk to trained mental health practitioners.

"I've been in policing for 19 years – and eight years in Dorset - so I'm not the same person I was when I joined as it desensitises you to things," Mr Wood said.

"Police officers are human, we're not robots and do make mistakes. It can be incredibly challenging.

"Sometimes you blame yourself if things don't go the way you wanted them to, or you think, 'oh if I was a bit quicker about it', a lot of it stays with you."

Mr Wood said the new service will help officers "decompress from seeing traumatic incidents" before they move on to the next one.

"The helpline is a really important thing, as a lot of the time the officers don't want to talk to their line managers or other officers," he said.

"Officers see some really traumatic things, for instance if we look at our roads, they are mostly all small country roads as there's no motorways in Dorset, so traffic accidents are likely to be far worse than they are in other areas of the country."

Mr Wood added another solution to help officers would be having more staff, as it would "help give them a break", adding there will be a recruitment drive in the next few weeks.

But for now, the helpline will "give them someone to talk through their problems and if we can help someone before they go off sick, then that is a really important thing".