One in four West Midlands emergency service workers has thought of suicide

The survey, by mental health charity Mind, of more than, was conducted of more than 1,600 staff and volunteers from police, fire, ambulance and search and rescue services. They showed that nine in 10 respondents had experienced stress, low mood and poor mental health at some point whilst working for the emergency services.

When asked in the survey if they had contemplated taking their own life, out of 81 responses, 23 per cent answered yes, just below the national average of 27 per cent from 1401 responses.

Out of 86 responses of those who work and volunteer in the West Midlands, 88 per cent said they had experienced stress, low mood or poor mental health in comparison to the national average of 92 per cent.

The national average of workers being prescribed medication, such as antidepressants and sleeping tablets due to stress and poor mental health was 41 per cent, compared to the 43 per cent of workers who answered yes in the West Midlands.

West Midlands Police Head of HR, Chris Rowson said: "Policing can be a high pressure job and officers and staff routinely put themselves in potentially dangerous situations in order to protect the public - and there's the chance they could be confronted with distressing scenes when attending incidents or investigating crimes.

"We are very conscious about the importance of looking after the health of our staff and offering support.

"The force operates an internal network comprising around 50 officers and staff of varying ranks who can offer colleague support to anyone experiencing work-related issues like stress or anxiety and in some cases clinical supervision to support officers in particularly challenging roles. The force is also establishing a Trauma Risk Management programme which will support supervisors to identify the early signs of trauma related problems, to enable affected officers to get swift access to counselling services or other sources of professional help.

"We also offer physiotherapy services for officers and staff with musculoskeletal conditions; health check services to screen for blood pressure and cholesterol levels; as well as a force well-being website to provide proactive advice, signposting and information."

Mind has been delivering a major programme of support for emergency services staff and volunteers and since March 2015, through their 'Blue Light Programme', more than 5,000 managers participated in line manager training, more than 440 emergency staff have registered to be Blue Light Champions, in a commitment to raise awareness of mental health, tackling stigma and helping helping enable staff and volunteers to talk more openly about their mental health at work.