Public and personal safety training APP – have your say

Our new public and personal safety training is already showing strong success and is providing consistency across forces. Early evaluations show it is equipping officers better than ever before to deal with the challenges they face. 

We have developed proposed APP to support this, providing a national standard for police training in this area. 

The training

Public and personal safety training (PPST) is for all police officers and some police staff. It ensures they have the skills and knowledge to manage situations involving physical and non-physical conflict safely and effectively.

The new training focuses on scenario-based incidents that officers are likely to deal with on a daily basis such as:

• stop and search
• dealing with a vulnerable person
• working in the custody area

Officers are taught how to protect themselves, colleagues and members of the public, including the use of de-escalation and communication tactics.

Our new curriculum was a commitment made in the 2020 officer and staff safety review. Since its launch in April, the feedback from officers, staff, and forces has been overwhelmingly positive. 30 forces have now started rolling out the training. All forces across England and Wales will be using the new curriculum by April 2024.

The proposed guidance

We’re developing new guidance to support forces to deliver this training to a consistently high standard. Once published, it will provide the first set of national standards in this area of police training.

It sets out what forces in England and Wales need to do to embed the new national curriculum effectively and ensure their officers and staff are trained to consistent and high standards, including:

• how many hours training everyone should receive
• how many officers one trainer can support

The proposed APP recommends a minimum of 12 hours a year of public and personal safety training and will ensure officers have a small enough class size to learn.

Health and wellbeing

Police officers and staff face confrontation and aggression on a regular basis, particularly those serving in front line roles. This can have a considerable effect on their mental and physical health and wellbeing. 

Our PPST training is equipping officers and staff with the best possible training to be able to protect themselves, fellow officers, or members of the public. 

Our National Police Wellbeing Service, Oscar Kilo, delivers many of the products offered through the Police Covenant, the government's pledge to recognise the bravery, commitment and sacrifices of those who work or have worked in policing.

Have your say

We want to hear your views on whether the guidance is clear and easy to use. We also want to know how it will impact you and your force. 

The consultation is open until 11:59am on Thursday 18 January 2024.