Chief Constable Sir John Robins QPM DL

Silence Between Sirens is a suicide-prevention cause for people who serve on the front line of the UK’s emergency services. Our goal is simple: no one in the emergency services should die by suicide. We exist to make it safe to speak up early, so that no one reaches breaking point alone.

We are writing to you as Chair of the Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association because chief officers carry this responsibility, and are not immune to the pressures behind it. Chief constables agreed mandatory, consistent recording of police suicides in April 2026. We are writing to chief constables and Commissioners across England and Wales, and have also written to the Prime Minister, asking for the same commitment across every emergency service.

Hannah Cooper founded the cause after 16 years in uniform. Richard Goold served as a frontline response officer with the Metropolitan Police in Peckham, South London. We both know from the inside what the job asks of people.

The cause is growing quickly. More than 12,000 frontline emergency services workers engage regularly with our content across our social channels. This summer we trained 44 blue light workers in Mental Health First Aid and suicide prevention, and supported 40 officers after the loss of a colleague.

What the evidence shows

In Policing: The Job and The Life (2019), 90% of police officers and staff reported exposure to trauma at work. Of those, one in five reported symptoms consistent with PTSD or complex PTSD. Over two thirds of those affected were unaware of it. In the 2026 National Police Workforce and Wellbeing Survey, 45% of the workforce report regular burnout because of their job. More than a third (35%) said that worry about their reputation or career made it difficult to access health and wellbeing support. Among police officers, the figure was 43%.

In January 2026, the Police Federation of England and Wales said more than 100 police officers and staff died by suicide between 2022 and 2025, at least 70 of them serving officers, and that its figures are likely to be a significant undercount. In September 2026 it reported that 47 of 75 officer suicides it recorded between 2022 and 2025 (62.7%) involved officers who were under misconduct or criminal investigation at the time, and that every officer suicide reported to Federation welfare networks so far in 2026, 13 in total, involved an officer under investigation. That is an association, not a cause. It points to a moment when support matters most.

Support around people makes a difference. A University of Cambridge study (2022) found that 7% of officers who could always rely on their colleagues showed symptoms of complex PTSD, against 12% across policing. More widely, an international review (2017) found that, across protective and emergency services, suicide prevention programmes were associated with an approximate halving in suicide rates.

For information, we are also offering forces Before Breaking Point, a two-hour early-support session for recruits, at no cost, and building the LifeLine Crew, a peer network of volunteers from across the services.

What we are asking

1. CPOSA’s backing for a national welfare standard for anyone under investigation, at every rank. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has committed to a national standard for welfare support for staff under investigation. The NHS has already made this shift. A nurse died by suicide following an investigation and disciplinary process; an independent inquiry found he had been “treated very poorly, to the extent that his mental health was severely impacted”. In 2019, NHS Improvement wrote to every NHS trust that “concern for the health and welfare of people involved in investigation and disciplinary procedures should be paramount and continually assessed”, and that serious harm to anyone in the process should be treated as a “never event”. We ask CPOSA to support a standard that includes planned service of papers with a welfare officer identified beforehand, independent welfare contact throughout, support from the outset, and care for those who are suspended or leaving, for chief officers as much as for anyone else.

2. Support for chief officers in leading on recording. Recording will only change things if it is consistent, published and acted on. We ask CPOSA to support chief officers in making sure every force reports every death, including anyone under investigation, and in pressing for a published national figure.

3. An hour with you and colleagues from CPOSA, to share what we are seeing and to understand how we can best reach and support chief officers themselves.

We do not claim to have every answer. We do bring lived experience, a growing community across every service and materials ready to share. The pressure of policing does not stop at the top, and neither should the support. We would welcome an hour with you at your earliest convenience.