Prince William’s plea for mental health support as emergency workers struggle under pressure

London: The Duke of Cambridge has been an outspoken advocate for mental health support in the UK for years, starting a charity called Heads Together and making numerous appearances in support of others. William spoke to a group of 999 workers and mountain rescue volunteers over video call on Wednesday. He chatted with people from Lifelines Scotland, which helps emergency responders and volunteers learn how to cope with stress and look after their own mental health.

During the call, William suggested their training should be designed so they are better able to cope with the potentially psychologically scarring incidents they will encounter. He said in the call: “The training is not there from the beginning.

“So when you become a paramedic, when you become an emergency rescuer, when you become a Police officer, when you are in the fire brigade, you know that mental health is absolutely at the core of what you do. “In the same way that we all have checklists and flight reference cards and all these things that we follow to make sure we are not missing anything, that all the right procedures are done, we need to have the same thing with mental health. “We need to have that moment.”