About us | Oscar Kilo

We want every member of the police service to feel confident that their wellbeing is taken seriously and that they are properly supported by their organisation.

When the people behind policing are supported, the whole service is stronger and better able to protect the public.

We help policing organisations build healthy working environments and meet their legal and moral duty of care. We want to help people to stay well, feel valued and thrive at work, and at home.

What we do

Developed for policing, by policing, we offer evidence-based, sector-specific support that's tailored to the unique challenges faced by the service.

We provide national solutions that help forces deliver consistent, cost-effective wellbeing support, saving them time and resources. Through our website, we also offer direct access to help and guidance for officers, staff, their families and those who leave the service.

Sitting with the College of Policing, and working closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office, we want to:

help police forces build world–class wellbeing support for everyone who works for them
improve knowledge and understanding of help and support available
reduce stigma around seeking support or help
encourage people to support themselves and realise their own potential
improve personal resilience and self-help skills

Our strategic role

The NPWS is a national resource embedded in policing and remains at the heart of policing’s commitment to its people.

We work collaboratively with forces, HMICFRS, and other stakeholders to provide clarity, consistency, and actionable solutions that address the systemic issues impacting police welfare and wellbeing. Our work directly supports:

Compliance with legal frameworks, such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Equality Act 2010, and Working Time Regulations 1998.
Delivery of national strategies and action plans, ensuring forces meet their obligations under the Police Covenant.
The HMICFRS PEEL process, providing data, insights, and guidance that demonstrate forces are meeting their workforce wellbeing responsibilities.

By addressing these critical areas, we want to support forces in achieving operational excellence and fulfilling their duty of care.

Our services

Everything we do is developed for policing, by policing. All the services we offer aim to be practical, scalable, and directly aligned with the unique challenges of the sector.

We support forces by providing:

a national health and wellbeing strategy
guidance and action plans
self assessment and benchmarking tools
data insights
a national police wellbeing survey
national practitioner networks and events
national reward and recognition

We also drive programmes of work that are data led and centered around key workforce wellbeing issues such as:

clinical governance (including occupational health)
healthy living
operation Hampshire - to approach to dealing with assaults on duty
peer support
psychological and trauma risk management
support for police families
support for police leavers
wellbeing and trauma support dogs
wellbeing vans and outreach service

Go to services

Our resources

We want everyone to feel the benefits of what we do.

Although our primary focus is to provide support at an organisational level, we also have resources available directly for everyone working in policing. These can be accessed online, at any time, from any device. These include online resources to help with:

sleep and fatigue
mental health support
nutrition
physical fitness
building resilience and self care

We also have:

online learning
mindfulness training (MindFit Cop)
wellbeing news, real-life stories, podcasts and interviews
awareness campaigns and materials
signposting to other helpful organisations and sources of support

Go to resources

Introduction to Oscar Kilo, the National Police Wellbeing Service

Find out what we are about and the services we offer. This video can be used to promote the service locally giving officers and staff a better understanding of how we support them and their forces to improve wellbeing in policing.

Video transcript

We in policing experience several hundred traumatic events in our working life, whereas a general member of the public might experience one or two. It’s vital that the culture of an organisation, the leadership of the organisation and the interventions and support that organisation has got are all lined up.

It’s such a big issue wellbeing that, you know, some people don’t know where to start. Oscar Kilo, the National Wellbeing Service, gives you a framework to start planning, whether it’s in your office, your department, your division, your whole force. Our goal is to provide world class support for those people who work in the incredibly and challenging environment of law enforcement policing in this country.

One of the great things about wellbeing is that there’s a huge community of people out there, people who do tons of stuff around wellbeing on top of their day job, because they care passionately about it. By having workshops with those professionals we will bring into that research, knowledge, good practice, make sure if there’s more research needs to be done we can get it done and rapidly turn it into good stuff on the frontline. Those workshops have been really successful, it’s brought those professionals together and their information has helped inform where we take the service next, as well.

The vans are a big part of what we have always wanted to achieve in Oscar Kilo, that is getting out and about to the people who are often overlooked, those hard to reach people, the ones who are doing the vital work on the frontline. We’ve had over 10,000 people so far go through the vans getting physical health checks, psychological health checks, it’s had a massive impact already wherever those vans have gone. We have now got a fleet of ten vehicles, we’ve got fleet management that will rotate those vehicles around the country and the ability to go out and meet people actually where they work.

So it’s all about prevention and to do prevention well you’ve got to go and park your vehicles up where people work, put on a cup of tea, put some cakes on and invite people in. Our objective is there’s over 200,000 people work in policing, for every single one of those people to have seen those vans and had the offer to go and have a health check.

We want to take our fleet of vehicles out, not just do health checks with them but also deliver training at operational bases using the latest technology with the latest research to create the type of environment where people are not just coming to work to survive their day, their shift, but they are here thriving in what is an incredibly exciting, interesting and meaningful job.

Wellbeing in policing is here to stay. The National Wellbeing Service is part and parcel of the driving force behind changing our culture, improving our services and, most importantly of all, listening to the people who actually do the work to find out what it is that needs to be done so that they can continue delivering a fantastic service to the public.

Do you need 1-2-1 support?

Please note that we do not have a helpline or provide individual 1-2-1 support.

If you have found us and are looking for direct support, or if you need to talk to someone, please contact your GP, your force occupational health unit, or visit our signposts page, which will give you a number of other options.

Go to signposts