In May 2020, we were delighted to join His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cambridge for a video call to discuss our shared passion for supporting the emotional and psychological health of emergency responders.
On the call with the Duke were Gail Topping (Scottish Ambulance) Gill Moreton (Lifelines), John Miller (Scottish Fire and Rescue) Ian Thomson (Police Scotland) and Steve Penny (Scottish Mountain Rescue).
The Duke was particularly interested to hear how the Scottish emergency service organisations are working in partnership with Lifelines, to help embed mental health and wellbeing support and training within their services, and by doing so reduce the stigma associated with it.
“The training needs to be there from the beginning so that when you become a paramedic or police officer, join mountain rescue or the fire brigade you know that mental health is absolutely at the core of what you do. In the same way we all have checklists to follow to make sure we don’t miss anything and all the right procedures are done, we need to have the same with mental health.“
“The full package, full armoury to do your job is enhanced by mental health support”
You can watch some clips from the video call in these tweets. You can also find out more about the work the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are doing to support emergency responders through the Royal Foundation here.
