Federation look forward to getting out and about to thank response officers for their hard work

HAMPSHIRE Police Federation will be out and about once they are allowed to again to thank response police officers for all that they do.

March saw The Response Policing Wellbeing and Resilience Week, an event organised Police Chiefs to recognise and thank officers for the extremely tough job response officers do day in and day out.

Due to COVID restrictions, Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoe Wakefield said she and the team weren’t able to mark the occasion as they would have liked to, but they now have some contingency plans.

“We had some plans; we were going to visit the response bases across the force area, but our COVID team said it would be in breach of the guidance, so we didn’t,” she said.

“But we’re working on some plans, so probably after the Easter holidays, we’re going to start visiting stations, and we’re going to plan once a week go somewhere different and try and get around as many different teams and stations across the county.

“I’ve spent the majority of my service on response. It’s what most people join the police to do.

“We don’t have that many departments in the force that work 24/7, doing nights, so we need to recognise how tough it is for them.

“Their numbers are low, they’re trying to coach, tutor all these student officers, and they’re a department that can never say no. Everybody else can say, ‘sorry, we’re too busy, we can’t deal with that, but response can never say that they just have to keep going and keep going and keep going.”