TIRED police officers will make mistakes, according to the Wiltshire Police Federation, who found more than half of its officers are at risk of insomnia.

A study into six police forces by the Third Pillar of Health has found that budget cuts and altered shift patterns are putting severe pressure on response officers, who routinely do not get enough sleep or take breaks.

Mike White, chairman of the Wiltshire Police Federation, said: “With the changes in pensions, officers are going to have to work longer and until they are older.

“It is even more important that our officers are fit and healthy.

“Also, with the cuts to policing a lot of officers are being drawn back into front-line roles involving shift work and body armour.

“The levels of fitness needed there are materially different.

“Our response officers have been telling us they are tired for a long time.

“The impact is that you are less tolerant and your judgement and decision-making is impaired.

“Those things are essential to a police officer, especially in conflict situations.

“Quite often that will occur in the early hours of a weekend, when officers are nearer their lowest ebb.”

A total of 229 officers, almost a quarter of Wiltshire Police, took part in the survey.

Of these 92 per cent felt they did not get enough sleep, and 56 per cent were at risk of insomnia.

In Wiltshire 86 per cent of officers were not able to take rest breaks.

“This should be a message from the top to make sure staff take their breaks,” added Mike.

“We will speak to the force as to how this could be achieved, but programmes cost money, and in times of budget cuts if you are looking to invest money in one thing you have to stop doing something else.

“This should be a high priority so that we can be best positioned to continue to give a good service to the public.

“If you look at incidents with tasers, if an officer is fatigued and feels threatened they could decide to mitigate that threat.

“There is a danger as we move into greater austerity that the balance between work and home life is swayed more towards the organisation.

“If we are going to keep cutting there are certain things we will have to stop doing.

“We need to give our officers that support now, because it is not going to get any better for them any time soon.

“What we are seeing over the last two years is a rise in complaints.

“A lot of that is around incivility or neglect of duty. Generally that is about decision-making or things not being done quickly enough.”

Marcus de Guingand, managing director of Third Pillar of Health, said: “The reduction in police numbers and the changes in shift schedules are having a serious effect on police officers.

“Everyone knows how they are affected when not allowed to get sufficient rest and police officers are no different.

“If nothing is done to address these issues the public can expect to see more officers off sick, more accidents and an increase in complaints against officers.”