About the book - How To Survive Your Police Career

Treat Yourself! Buy The Book!

Police Sergeant Darren Moor crams in twenty-eight years of experience and four yours of research into a book designed to help Bobbies and staff old and new to look after their health while working such a chaotic 24/7 existence. With help from police experts in their field he covers a wide range of health matters in an easy-to-digest format, cutting through jargon, in order to highlight the information that’s important for us all. There are sections on …

Reducing Danger & Avoiding Infection

What exactly are infections and how can we avoid them. How our body tries to protect us against infections but hasn’t been designed very well to do so. The differences between viruses and bacteria. Antibiotics and when to bug our doctor for them. The importance of vaccinations. Winter flu and why we should have the winter flu jab. The common cold. Glandular fever. ‘Strep’ and ‘stap’ infections, including MRSA. Sepsis and why little wounds can kill us if we don’t treat them with respect. Meningitis. Norovirus. Food poisoning such as E.coli, salmonella, listeria and shigella and how we get them. Hepatitis and HIV. Oh … and why we as police officers should all raise a toast with parade room tea once a year to the memory of PC Albert Alexander.

Exercise: What’s Good And What Causes Us Problems

A long Q&A with Mark Heffernan, a police-employed physio, about how we can make ourselves more resilient to injury through appropriate exercise. What to do if we do get injured. How some minor injuries can quickly become chronic and all-but untreatable if we don’t attend to them properly. Knees, backs and other bits of the body that traditionally cause problems for Bobbies. How to counteract the damage of sitting at a desk or in a police car for ten hours at a time. How we need to adjust our exercise regimes at different stages in our lives to avoid problems … ditch those sit-ups! Some suggestions as to the ideal exercise regimes for different age groups.

Food & Nutrition For The Operational Bobby

How to tailor what we eat with the demands of our peculiar 24/7 existence. How some foods give us energy and enthusiasm while others knacker us out and bring us down … how some foods can encourage deadly diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure while others deter them. Other, not exactly deadly but never-the-less important, considerations about the food we eat. Free radicals and antioxidants. Super foods and super diets. The Mediterranean diet. Theories around high GI foods, serotonin, and general food combining. The ups and downs of caffeine. The dangers of dehydration. Just what is a sensible diet for the shift-working Bobby and how we should tailor different foods for different shifts. Some advice on nutrition during Ramadan. How to enjoy booze without it affecting our health or getting us sacked or divorced. Perfect poos and ‘orrendous haemorrhoids … with, of course, special consideration given to the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo ...

Making Food & Exercise Work Together

With advice from Dan Worthington – police sergeant and (amazingly) ex-professional wrestler – we describe how combining what we eat and when we eat it can make a difference to the results of our exercise. Carbo-cycling. How those protein shakes might just be as important as our tight t.shirt wearing members of the team always make them out to be.

Sleep, How To Get It And What Happens When You Don’t

How a lack of decent sleep is likely to affect the quality and length of our lives. REM and N-REM; the mechanics of sleep and how different sleep benefits us in different ways. Some suggestions for sleeping after Nights, sleeping after Lates and before Earlies. How to stay asleep ... that constant need to wee … why? How to negotiate with our family about getting the sleep we need to make our – and their – lives better. Foods that encourage sleep and others that keep us awake. More about caffeine and how to use it correctly in respect to sleep. What to do when the stress of this job keeps waking us up. The joy of silently singing songs in the dark ….

Mental Health and Wellbeing – Stress, Trauma and Relationships

Wayne Goodwin, police inspector and guru in all matters mental health and trauma, discusses what we can do to keep ourselves well against the odds. A description of common mental health conditions and how they can affect us. Simple things we can do to look after our mental health. Why we react to trauma in the way we do and how we can help ourselves to counter these effects. How to keep good relationships with our partners and children. Acute stress disorder and PTSD. Adjustment disorders. And – yeah - not forgetting the importance of Bob Hoskins in police officer mental health …

Happiness; What’s Life All About Then?

A brief look at new research into what does actually make us happy – takes ten minutes to read and might just change your life …

More On Reducing Danger & Avoiding Infection

Back to all those bugs again. What to do if we’re spat upon or bitten by some idiot. Needle-stick injuries and how to avoid them. Dangerous dogs and what to do when we’re chomped on by some hound “… aaaarrrrrhhhhhhh …!” Skin conditions relating to staphylococcal, impetigo and cellulitis. Head lice and bedbugs. Scabies and ring worm. TB and Ebola. What should we carry around with us to help avoid against infection. Why a knife tube crammed with wet-ones makes such logical sense when you think about it …

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sexually Transmitted Infections But Were Too Afraid To Ask

And, as it turns out, there’s an awful lot to know, starting with some generalisations about STIs that we all ought really to have an understanding of but probably don’t. Pubic lice. Genital herpes … HSV-1 and 2. Syphilis. Gonorrhoea – both super and old school. Pelvic inflammatory disease. Chlamydia. Trichomoniasis. Genital Warts. How to reduce our chances of catching any of these horrors and what to do if we have. A brief description of why we didn’t really want to be catching syphilis during the sixteenth century …

“… I Thought I Felt Run Down Because Of The Shifts …”

A chapter on cancers and other conditions which can sneak up on us if we don’t look out for them. How we might not notice that we have some serious condition which has fatigue as a sign or symptom because we’re always knackered by shift-work. A description of those conditions - coeliac disease, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea. lower urinary tract infections, chronic fatigue syndrome, iron deficiency anaemia, vitamin B12 or folate deficiency anaemia and underactive thyroid. A brief guide then to cancers – what exactly is cancer, how it’s caused and how it’s treated. What we can do to lower our risk and what factors heighten that risk. A description of particular cancers relating to the police officer age group – breast cancer in women and men, cervical cancer, testicular cancer, prostate cancer, bowel cancer, skin cancer, leukaemia, ovarian cancer, brain cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, thyroid cancer, lung cancer, ending with a general but never-ending rant about the dangers of smoking.

Specific Issues Relating To Female Health

A chapter about female health issues provided by Debbie, our police medical professional, aimed at the ladies but best read by the fellas as well if they want some chance of understanding their crewmate at three o’clock in the morning on a rainy Tuesday in January. Subjects discussed include hormones, PMT, and how to reduce their effects. Endometriosis. A brief guide to ovarian cysts. Polycystic ovary syndrome. Toxic shock syndrome. Cystitis. Pregnancy within the service. The menopause. Why routine health checks are so important. Checking your boobs. The various benefits, including erotic, of regularly exercising your pelvic floor muscles ...

Genetic Health Risk Factors For Different Ethnic Groups Within The Police Family

A title, I would like to think, so long that it hopefully needs no further explanation!

Fire Safety

Jim Ledger, one of our friends from Trumpton, explains why the three fire phenomena of flashover, backdraft and fire gas explosion means that you don’t really want to be getting anywhere near that house-fire that members of the public are enthusiastically encouraging you to enter and rescue people from – however brave you might be feeling. He also talks extensively about the risk of fire and explosion at road accidents … oh, and that training which senior fire officers are given in the pointing at things, and then quickly pointing at other things, having just jumped out of their fire engines.

The Danger Of Water

How open water can kill us as police rescuers. How the danger of cold water immersion works against the instincts of our body and turns us from rescuers to someone else who needs rescuing. Practical things we can do to help people without entering the water. The danger of strong currents, rip-tides … and coconuts …

Eyesight And How To Look After It

What we can do to reduce fatigue from those damn computer screens. The importance of breaks and blinking. Why sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats are more than a fashion statement. The dangers of UVA, UVB and various eye conditions which we don’t want to affect us. Why ‘surfer eye’ is not as glamorous as it might sound. Steps we can take to keep our eyes healthy. How, if we wear contact lenses, we need to be very careful about following the instructions provided by the optician that supplied them. What to do if we get something in our eye … and the slowness of turtles …

The Joys, But Mostly Dangers, Of All Things Social Media

Those damn complaints ... how what we commit ourselves to in social media can not only end our careers but also expose us and our families to danger from terrorists and organised crime groups.

Acid Attacks

Some detailed suggested actions for if the worst happens to us when we’re on your own.

Observations From A Life In Crime

Some general advice and rambling which we can’t find a home for anywhere else but is still useful stuff.

Squaring Off Our Bobby Health

Just a little idea which ties together a lot of the theories we’ve discussed in the book …

And, Finally, Something Funny To Finish

Because if anyone needs cheering up these days then it’s probably Bobbies …

Darren joined Kent Police in 1990. He spent six years on section before transferring to a tactical team where he spent a further four years engaged in public order duties (including video evidence gathering and later as a Forward Intelligence Officer), search warrants, anti-street drug dealing operations, POLSA and surveillance work. Following this time, he transferred to a firearms role where he spent a further ten years as an AFO, crewing ARVs in response to spontaneous firearms incidents and carrying out protection duties for high-profile politicians. During this time, he also qualified as a Ballistic Teams Medic.

In 2010 he decided that he was probably getting a little old for all that firearms Tom Foolery and that it might be better to find a role that didn’t involve having to climb over eight feet high walls … in the pouring rain … in the middle of the night … carrying more luggage than he generally took on holiday … with the aim then of hiding in a bush for eight hours whilst staring at a house and waiting for someone to come out who may or may not have a gun. He, therefore, returned to section work and was promoted Sergeant where he is still deployed today, doing a mixture of uniformed response, admin and custody roles depending on what the Queen requires of him that month. He has been a Trauma Management (TRiM) practitioner since 2006, aiding colleagues with their recovery from traumatic incidents as well as assisting in the training of new practitioners. He is also qualified as a Post Incident Manager (PIM) supporting colleagues after incidents of death or serious injury following police contact.

He is married with two children and lives in Kent. Outside of work he enjoys sailing (badly … sometimes suicidally), cycling, walking and then recovering from these energetic activities by reading historical biographies the size of building blocks which encourage him to fall asleep.

Mark Heffernan is a chartered physiotherapist, qualifying in 2002. He joined the police service in 2007 and enjoyed hurting – or treating - police officers and staff so much that he stayed.

In his time working with police he has developed his role to that of ‘injury reduction consultant’ and delivers talks to all new recruits in how to reduce their risk of injury in the first place. This, he thought naively, would allow him to make a cup of tea, put his feet up and become redundant - no chance in this line of work! Fast cars, riot shields and Saturday night roll-arounds cause injury but then so do poor eating, seating, sleeping, stress, computer screens, mice, mobiles and shift work - please sit up properly while reading this!

In Mark’s efforts to understand the business of policing, he has spent time kitted up with firearms, public order, method of entry and helps train recruits in fitness to ensure they are robust enough for the rigours of the Police service whilst reducing their risk of injury.

In his younger years he attempted to make it as an athlete, but soon found that even giving 100% was never going to replace the talent he lacked in abundance, so, he hung up his spikes for a decent pair of shoes and became a postman ... well, he thought, it would be better than walking the streets! Thirteen years later and noticing that heavy post bags cause twisted spines he sought a way out. First he became a driving instructor while also gaining qualifications in personal training and massage. Having had enough of being chased down streets by dangerous dogs and now 36 with three children, (4,3,1) he decided to test his marriage to the full by going back to college and getting those academic qualifications that so easily eluded him in his younger years. During these hard years the highlight of his week was finding a quid down the back of the sofa so they could buy a loaf of bread. He passed the access course with flying colours and went to university to study Physiotherapy. Now 37 and a mature student he hoped when he got to Uni that he wouldn’t be so old as to be classed as mouldy. He was very relieved to find he wasn’t the oldest.

Six months before qualifying, while on placement in the NHS, he challenged a superintendent physiotherapist who was not treating the elderly patients well and came close to being thrown off the course. But he was vindicated. Returning to university, and rapidly approaching 40, he was asked by two fellow students, ‘When were diagnosed with dyslexia?’ to which he replied, ‘No I’m not dyslexic, I think it’s my dodgy eyesight. The words jump up and down and I get a headache after ten minutes of reading.’ They laughed but he went for an assessment to be advised that he must have been severely dyslexic as a child and was now a compensated dyslexic. Armed with a ‘disability’ he was asked to attend a counselling session at the university and asked, ‘How do you feel about being given this diagnosis?’ to which he replied, ‘Thank you very much … always thought dyslexics were more intelligent than the concrete sequential learners! Einstein, Newton, Branson, all dyslexic and now I’m in the same club … ta very much.’

From university Mark spent five years working in the NHS taking in such disciplines as neurology, outpatients, orthopaedics, paediatrics, respiratory and intensive care but left shortly afterwards as a result of a serious assault one morning in-between treating patients which led on to PTSD. A stint of sick leave followed during which time a chance encounter with the Metropolitan Police led to Mark being offered the role as Kent Police physiotherapist.

In 2014 Mark challenged his dyslexia to the limit by writing and publishing a book, ‘I Am The Referee’ about the world’s best, (at time of writing) boxing referee, Ian John Lewis. It continues to sell well. Writing is his hobby and he is currently negotiating to having the two novels he has written transferred to the screen – watch this space!

Now, at 56, he still plays football and is in the same team as his two sons who are 24 and 21. Life is good and he is glad to report that it’s been a few years since he has had to frisk the sofa in ‘search’ for a meal!

Debbie qualified as a nurse in 1997 and since then have worked in many different environments from Accident and Emergency to Gynaecology. I joined Kent Police in 2001 and began working as a Forensic Nurse Practitioner dealing with some interesting clients whilst at the same time trying to understand aspects of the law that as a nurse I have never had to consider before! In 2006 I became the manager of the service whilst at the same time studying for a Bachelor of Science degree with Honours. Over the last 11 years, my role has changed due to the restructuring of the force and I am now Head of Operational Healthcare. As life wasn’t busy enough I also undertook further study and am now qualified as an Independent Nurse Prescriber. When I have any down time I like to spend it with my husband, our dogs and our ever-expanding number of grandchildren.

Wayne joined Kent Police in 1999, he first tried to join in the early 1990s but was a little too wet behind the ears so got told to go away and come back in a few years’ time so he thought he would do the next best thing and joined the Royal Military Police. He has done a variety of different jobs (and two lots of promotion exams) and his most recent is as the Force Mental Health Liaison Inspector which he has held since 2014. Like Darren he is also a Trauma Management (TRiM) practitioner and hopes to qualify as a counsellor in 2019 as he has a great interest both professionally and personally in this area. He loves to study and has a masters degree in terrorism studies which took 6 years to attain and isn’t too bad for someone that bunked college to paint the staffroom at Burger King and got told off by his mum for doing so. Outside of work he loves moaning about how his VW camper-van keeps breaking down.

Station Manager Jim Ledger joined the fire service in 1996 at the age of 29. Completing the 16-week recruit course set him on a career dealing with incidents ranging from multi-vehicle road traffic accidents to large fires at various ranks gaining experience and knowledge on how to keep safe and deal with the unexpected. During that time he has studied to gain fire service promotion exams to the rank of station manager.

After 10 years of riding the fire engines at various ranks, his experience gave him the opportunity to train as an instructor in the fire service gaining qualifications in fire behaviour, positive ventilation tactics, marine firefighter. plus Cert Ed teaching qualifications for adult education with a supporting diploma in business studies.

Whilst in training SM Jim Ledger developed lead roles in Marine firefighting and taught incident command tactics to level 2 commanders building a good knowledge on changing practices in firefighting as modern building construction changed the dangers to firefighters and how modern technology allows for safer firefighting tactics.

SM Jim Ledger is presently a station manager in the service as a manager of 3 operational stations and is actively a level 2 fire officer.

When SM Jim Ledger is not fighting fires he spends is time cycling and travelling Europe in his motorhome with his longtime partner with the ambition to travel further afield with cycle and motorhome when he retires.