FOI release
Freedom of Information request on staff mental health sickness absence & support usage
Case reference FOI2026/00960
Received 12 August 2026
Published 29 October 2026
Request
I am writing to request information from London Fire Brigade under the Freedom of Information Act. Please can you provide the following, for the calendar years: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 to date, unless stated otherwise. 1. Does the organisation currently have a staff mental health or wellbeing policy in place? If yes, please provide a copy of the policy or a link to where it is publicly available. 2. The total number of employee sickness absence days recorded for mental health-related reasons, including stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, trauma or work-related mental health issues, where recorded. 3. The number of individual staff members who took sickness absence for mental health-related reasons. 4. The total number of staff referred to occupational health, an employee assistance programme, counselling, therapy or other psychological support for mental health-related reasons, where recorded. 5. Of those referrals, the number where the reason included stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, trauma or work-related mental health, where recorded. 6. What internal and/or external support is currently provided for employee mental health? Please specify whether each form of support is internal or external. This may include, but is not limited to, employee assistance programmes, occupational health, counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy, talking therapy, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, peer support, trauma-informed support, psychological wellbeing checks or other forms of support. 7. The average waiting time for staff to access mental health support, including counselling, employee assistance programmes, occupational health or other psychological support, where recorded. 8. The total annual spend on staff mental health support, employee assistance programmes, counselling, occupational health or other psychological support services, where recorded. 9. The total number of employees in the organisation in each year. Where held, and where disclosure would not risk identifying individuals, would it be possible to receive the data for questions 2, 3, 4 and 5 broken down by: * Age band: 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65 and over * Gender: male, female, other * Job role * Location of unit or branch by the first half of the postcode Please supply the data as a spreadsheet, Excel or CSV, rather than as a PDF. If any part of this request would exceed the cost limit, please treat each numbered question as a separate request, tell me which part is affected, and advise how it could be narrowed, in line with the duty to provide advice and assistance under section 16 of the Act.
Response
Please see the response in the attached link below.
Documents
This is London Fire Brigade's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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