Thousands of rest days owed to Hampshire police officers

NEARLY 5,000 rest days were due to be re-rostered for frontline officers on a single day.
John ApterJohn Apter
John Apter

Across the frontline areas of response and patrol, neighbourhood and investigations, there were 4,855 rest days as of October 9.

These days were due to 1,347 officers in those areas.

‘The force has done an awful lot of work reducing this in the last 12 months,’ Hampshire Police Federation chairman John Apter said.

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Police forces should re-rota rest days when they are cancelled, best practice says.

Calum McLeod, chairman of Police Federation in England and Wales said: ‘We do not have the resources at the moment to meet the demands of the public – whether that be in an event, a terrorist incident, or whether that be from a police officer’s perspective of actually achieving their rest days.

‘It’s really important that anybody has rest between their shift patterns because if that isn’t happening what you tend to find is people getting fatigued very easily.

‘If that isn’t happening and rest days are being banked, it’s a dangerous situation for the public and it’s a dangerous situation for policing.’

and it needs to be addressed.’

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A Home Office spokesman said it was up to chief officers to make sure ‘good management systems are in place’.

He said: ‘Police forces have a statutory duty to manage the working time and welfare of officers and ensure they can take the leave and rest days they are entitled to.’