Taxpayer picks up bill for hundreds of police officers signed off with stress
Exclusive research by Telegraph shows at least 800 officers across England and Wales have stress-related conditions
Nearly 800 police officers are off work on full pay due to stress-related sickness, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds a year, it can be disclosed.
The Telegraph can reveal 787 officers are currently signed off for stress across 35 forces in England and Wales.
It means the taxpayer is funding a wage bill estimated at more than £550,000 a week for officers who are suffering stress-related illness, at a time when the total number of officers has fallen to its lowest level in 11 years.
The true number of officers off with stress will be far higher - possibly more than 1,000 - because eight of the 43 forces in England and Wales failed to provide data under the Freedom of Information Act.
One of the most significant findings of the survey was that smaller, largely rural forces have some of the highest proportions of officers off work with stress.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...th-stress.html
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