The Psychological Health Insight Tool (PHIT) is designed to help identify factors affecting your wellbeing, including anxiety, depression, trauma and key lifestyle influences. This FAQ page explains how the tool works, how your data is used, and how the insights gathered help support both you and wider policing wellbeing initiatives.
What is the Psychological Health Insight Tool?
The Psychological Health Insight Tool (PHIT) is a collection of questions and measures to help identify psychological ill health such as anxiety, depression or trauma as well as looking at some lifestyle factors which can affect our wellbeing.
These questions have been carefully constructed for use with policing roles placing special consideration on the types of ways your job might impact your psychological health.
Whilst your answers will only be seen by your occupational health department, anonymised data (i.e. removal of any identifying factors including name, force etc) will be used to understand force wide and national trends. These national insights will help forces better understand psychological risk factors and will support the development of national products and resources by the National Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS) to support you and your force.
The questions consist of widely used, researched and validated tools to ensure your health is measured correctly.
Questions regarding lifestyle are based on current NHS recommendations for factors such as diet, sleep and exercise which can affect health.
A list of references for these tools can be found in the Occupational Health guidance that has been provided to forces.
Why do I need to complete the questionnaire?
The questionnaire is like an annual physical health check such as blood pressure or eye test, which can help to identify changes that may indicate ill health, providing an opportunity to receive treatment or make lifestyle changes to avoid future serious health concerns.
This questionnaire is the same but for your psychological health. It’s an annual psychological health check to help identify any concerns and make sure you get help and advice as early as possible. The earlier we seek help for mental health concerns and get the right support, the quicker we can start to feel better.
How long does it take to complete the questionnaire?
It should take less than half an hour to complete the questionnaire. It’s better to answer the questions promptly and without overthinking what the answer should be.
Taking the time to complete the questionnaire can be an opportunity for you to think about how you have been feeling recently, something we don’t often get a chance to do with our busy lives.
What will happen after I complete the questionnaire?
Once you have completed the questionnaire, your responses will be reviewed by a member of your force Occupational Health (OH) team.
Only certain people in your OH team are authorised administrators and can access the results.
Most people who complete the questionnaire will not need any further contact with occupational health.
For a small percentage of people, your occupational health team will need to follow up with you to arrange an appointment to discuss your results. This is nothing to worry about and it doesn’t mean that you have ‘failed’ the questionnaire.
It may just mean you may benefit from some advice on general lifestyle habits, or it may be to discuss signs of depression or anxiety that have been identified by the questionnaire. You may be referred for counselling to help you work through any difficulties that you might be experiencing.
For some people, they may not be aware that they have been feeling anxious or depressed, the questions are designed to pick up on things that we might not be able to identify in ourselves.
It’s important to attend the appointment and speak to your OH team about the results of your questionnaire.
What will my manager be told?
Your manager will not have access to your results or see any report that is issued unless you choose to share it with them. Should workplace adjustments be required, the OH advisor will discuss this with you before speaking with your manager.
What happens to my data?
Your force OH team may use anonymised data to produce reports, providing important information on the health of its workforce, this will not include any personal or identifying information. For example, this might include rates of anxiety for a certain role, or which age groups show more signs of poor sleep.
The NPWS will have access to this anonymised data to assist with the development of training and wellbeing strategies. Your name, age and other data which identifies you will never be seen outside of your occupational health unit.
The reports generated are considered as medical confidential and cannot be disclosed without your permission.
How often will I have to complete the questionnaire?
For most police and staff roles, annual completion of the questionnaire will be sufficient, however your force may choose to run the process more often depending on your role.
What happens if I don’t want to complete the questionnaire?
The questionnaire is for you. We want you to be safe and well in your job and the questionnaire is one way of doing this. It is also an opportunity for you to check in with yourself, think of it as a psychological MOT.
Your force may mandate completion of the questionnaire, or it may be a requirement for your role. Non-completion may result in your force being unable to determine fitness which may affect your ability to carry out your role.
How does it work?
Your force occupational health will send out invites via the PHIT portal. You will receive an email with an invite to the questionnaire which is personal to you.
Once you click on the invite link the questionnaire will open. You can save and come back to complete the questionnaire at any point.
The questionnaire will ask you questions about yourself, your recent health e.g. how well you sleep, whether you’ve had any recent illnesses or whether you had any changes to your mental wellbeing such as low mood or anxiety.
You will then be asked some questions which can help to identify early stages of anxiety, depression or trauma, and looks at your coping strategies. This information will help your OH team to support you back to full health should you be asked to attend an appoint.
Following completion of the questionnaire, an authorised administrator from your force OH team will be able to see your responses. For most people there will be no need to see your OH team, but for a small minority of people, they may need to speak to an Occupational Health Advisor or counsellor to discuss their results.
What happens if I feel stressed or low when I complete the questionnaire?
The questions are designed to pick up on psychological ill health and can differentiate between a bad day and something more serious.
If you are struggling with your mental health at times when you are not due to complete the questionnaire, speak to a peer supporter, your manager, contact your OH team or have a look at the support services listed here.
If you feel you are in mental health crisis, and feel suicidal, contact the dedicated Police Mental Health Crisis Line on 0300 131 2789.