The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) recently branded the issue as “a mental health crisis in the fire and rescue service”, reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter
Firefighters in London are facing constant exposure to trauma and burnout from dealing with “emotionally demanding” call outs, the London Assembly has been told.
The mental health crisis in the industry is well documented, with 60% of fire service workers who took part in a 2019 survey by charity Mind reporting personal experience of mental health problems.
Five years later, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) branded the issue as “a mental health crisis in the fire and rescue service”.
Between January 2019 and June 2024, “stress, anxiety and depression” was the cause of one-fifth of all London Fire Brigade’s (LFB) long-term sickness absences – defined as those off work for longer than two weeks.
Industry figures have now warned of an evolving threat to the wellbeing of firefighters due to the changing nature of the role itself.
Dr Carolina Campodonico, who is leading the team comissioned by the FBU at the University of Lancashire in researching the mental health crisis, suggested staff “now attend relatively few fires compared to other types of incidents”, with her findings suggesting it was under a quarter of calls.
“When we talk about stress in the fire service, it’s really important to move beyond the idea that this is just about attending fires,” she told the London Assembly fire committee on Tuesday (13th).
“The most common cause involve false alarms, rescues, road traffic, collisions, water incidents like drowning, and a significant number of mental health related incidents involving suicide risk or severe distress.
“These incidents might not involve flames, but they’re emotionally demanding, especially when they happen over many years.
“Add to that long service lengths, high core volumes, and a largely whole-time workforce, and you have sustained exposure with very little opportunity to properly decompress.”
Dr Campodonico’s research also found that one-third of firefighters in London suffer from clinical sleep disturbances, something she said was “strongly linked to shift work, workload and mental health”.
Dr Adrian Bevan, assistant director of health and safety at LFB, added: “We know that firefighters are more likely to suffer fear about occupational injury and occupational wheel health.
“We know that they’re involved in shift work. We now that they have secondary employment. We know that there are impacts on sleep and fatigue.
“We know that there are risk factors and we know we can concentrate on those.”
Professor Rowena Hill of Nottingham Trent University, which produced a 2023 report on the mental health and wellbeing of firefighters, also raised the issue of staff suffering from “moral injury”.
Defined as dealing with the trauma of witnessing or participating in acts that contravene one’s moral beliefs, it is a syndrome that can lead to the development of mental health disorders.
“Where we see things like home fire safety visits – they’re seeing a lot of people slipping through different cracks within statutory obligations or where they see some significant need that can’t be met,” she said.
“That’s where we find that moral injury. So some of the burnout, I believe, might actually be moral injury that we’re hearing.”
London’s firefighters also have the unique issue of operating in the “busiest service across the country”, according to LFB deputy commissioner Spencer Sutcliff, who claimed the LFB has done an “awful lot of work” to help staff.
In 2022 the force launched new wellbeing strategy along with a new mental health policy intended to shift LFB “from a largely treatment model of wellbeing support to a preventative model”.
He suggested increasing reports of mental health concerns could be down to a removal of stigma rather than increasing stress levels.
“I would say that actually mental health [issues] hasn’t necessarily increased over recent times,” Sutcliff added.
“People are more open and honest about their mental health challenges now.
“So there’s less stigma about reporting sickness around stress, anxiety, depression.
“So that naturally influences the numbers, not necessarily the actual occurrences of stress.”
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