How the UK police force is transforming mental health support for its officers

Policing is a profession that demands not only physical strength but also immense mental resilience. Over the past two decades, the demands on police officers have changed tremendously and so has the conversation around mental health in policing. 

To understand this shift, Nordic Wellbeing Academy spoke with Professor John Harrison, National Police Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales. His work has been pivotal in shifting the culture from one of silence and stigma to one of openness and support and how mental resilience is being prioritised in modern policing. 

The Challenges: Stigma, Culture, and Evolving Demands

Historically, policing has been dominated by a “macho culture”, where emotional vulnerability is often seen as weakness. Officers relied on coping mechanisms like dark humor, alcohol, or simply bottling up their feelings. As John notes: “Police and fire services have quasi-militaristic structures with macho cultures that historically ignored emotional feelings.”

This culture created a significant stigma around mental health, leaving many officers feeling isolated. The problem was compounded by the fact that policing itself has evolved dramatically. Where officers once dealt primarily with traditional crimes, they now face complex issues like domestic abuse, sexual violence and online paedophilia – all of which carry a heavy psychological burden.

Another challenge is the lack of experience among newer officers. John points out that around 25% of officers today have less than five years of service, meaning they often lack the maturity and coping skills to handle the traumas they encounter.

Building Resilience: From Individual to Organisational Support

John explains, “Peer support networks allow officers to speak with colleagues who understand their experiences. This creates a sense of camaraderie and trust, which is essential for breaking down barriers to seeking help.”

Additionally, external networks of trauma therapists have been established to provide specialised care, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). These therapies are designed to help officers process trauma and build resilience.

While individual resilience is critical, John emphasises that organisational resilience is equally important. This means creating a work environment that supports mental wellbeing through policies, training, and leadership. He states, “We’re shifting from focusing solely on individual resilience to building organisational resilience. This involves training managers to recognise signs of stress in their teams and fostering a culture where wellbeing is prioritised.”

Increasingly, data analytics play a crucial role, too. By tracking metrics like sickness absence, burnout rates, and presenteeism, the police force can identify trends and tailor their support programmes more effectively.

The Future of Mental Health in Policing

As John puts it: “We’re trying to embed the concept of wellbeing in our workforces, with leadership from everybody in policing from a wellbeing perspective.”The goal is to create a culture where mental health is not just discussed but actively supported – where officers feel empowered to seek help without fear of judgment. With continued effort, collaboration, and investment, the future of policing can be one where resilience and wellbeing are at the heart of the profession. For now, the message is simple: mental health matters, and in policing, it’s not just a personal issue – it’s an operational necessity.

As part of the MentaStress project, NWA visited Greater Copenhagen Fire Department in April 2025 and learned more about their history, transformational journey, and current landscape of psychosocial support. MentaStress aims to enhance mental health and stress management for first responders through augmented reality (AR) training. More recently, NWA Senior Communication Advisor, Anna Gallinat, had the chance to interview Christian Hagelund Vangsgaard, firefighter and crew commander in Copenhagen, who is driving the change for more mental resilience on the job. 

In 2017, tragedy struck at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, when a terrorist attack killed 22 people and injured over 1,000. While the headlines focused on the victims and the perpetrator, a lesser-known aftermath unfolded quietly within the emergency services. A crew of firefighters called to the scene were denied entry due to misinformation and security protocols. Treated as an active shooter situation, the incident led police to hold back the fire crew – a decision that had deep psychological consequences.

“Not being allowed to do your job is one of the key factors for developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is what happened there,” explains Christian Hagelund Vangsgaard, Crew Commander for the Greater Copenhagen Fire Department.

Around 10 years ago, the Department started recognising that large-scale security incidents like terror attacks were no longer remote possibilities but real threats. Greater Copenhagen’s fire service launched a new wave of training programmes, which aimed not only at technical readiness but also at mental resilience.

The training initiative was spearheaded by Christian and his colleague Andreas Corell, who believed that modern emergency response demanded a new mindset. Firefighters were trained to handle high-stress, high-risk environments as well as how to process the psychological impact of those events. The goal: to prevent PTSD by addressing its root causes – lack of preparedness and the inability to act.

The biggest challenge wasn’t the technical component. It was changing a deeply ingrained culture. According to Christian: “The biggest part was not the technical preparation, like how to do a special kind of first aid. It was to change the mindset that these incidents are dangerous in a different way and that mental preparedness as well as resilience are big parts of it.”

In a traditionally stoic and physically demanding profession, change isn’t easy. The fire service, like many emergency organisations, has long been steeped in a culture that rewards toughness and discourages vulnerability.

  “Culture is a difficult thing to change, but not impossible.”

Christian Hagelund Vangsgaard

To shift the mindset, Christian began with leadership – his own. After each emergency call, his team holds a debrief. These start with a discussion of technical actions, but in more significant situations, they also include mental and psychological evaluations. As crew commander, Christian leads by example: “I feel it is my responsibility to set an example, not just on the technical side of a call, but also on the mental aspects of the job.” He usually begins by sharing how a particular incident affected him emotionally, which encourages others to do the same.

“We all get affected by something at some point in different ways. And it’s okay to get emotionally affected, because we’re not made of stone. We are whole human beings, not machines.”

Today, the Greater Copenhagen Fire Department includes mental resilience as a key part of its operating model. “The more you talk about it, the more you normalize it,” says Christian. His leadership has helped foster a culture that embraces emotional awareness alongside operational excellence. The shift from silence to dialogue, from suppression to resilience, is making the department stronger, better prepared and more human.

In the MentaStress project we had the a great meeting with the project partners in Copenhagen April 3-4. We discussed the key results from the end users surveys and the implications and needs to cover in the upcoming training material.

We also had a very insightful meeting at the Greater Copenhagen Fire Department to learn more about their history, transformational journey, and current landscape of psychosocial support. The Mentastress Project is working to build a stress management and mental health support programme for first responders with a new international training concept and material – this made this visit to the biggest and oldest fire department organisation in Europe extremely interesting.

Read more about the project here.

With project partners in Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Hungary, NWA was excited to join the kick off meeting in Limoges, France for the MentaStress project: Empowering First Responders for Better Mental Health in Crisis Situations.

The project is an innovative EU-wide initiative designed to both enhance first responders’  efficiency in emergencies and to support their mental well-being before and after.

The project will develop learning materials based on real life crisis events, and a multilingual platform to support the first responders and raise awareness. We will also explore and build augmented reality tools to create immersive stress-management training for first responders and carry out training in five EU countries to validate tools and content. This will help us build a comprehensive stress management guide.

MentaStress connects 9 partners across 7 EU countries, spans over 24 months and includes pilot programs, research, events, and seminars, creating an inclusive platform that targets broad engagement and sustainability.

We aim to shape policies in crisis management and mental health at both the national and EU levels. By fostering cross-sector cooperation, MentaStress will offer scalable and transferable training solutions, improving crisis response and mental health support for first responders and the community.