Well, I am glad to say that notwithstanding the best efforts of the weather, we managed to safely open both Centres for treatment on Monday 6 January as planned. 
When I say “We” I actually mean everyone else at the Harrogate Centre who made it into work whilst I was snowed in at home 40 miles away, trying to dig myself out of my driveway. Everyone at the Auchterarder Centre which despite the huge snowfall in Harrogate, remained free of snow, albeit it was a bit chilly to put it mildly.
We have now compiled our statistical analysis for 2024, and I am very pleased to say that the number of donors and patients that we treated at the PTC for the year, are up significantly in comparison with 2023 and the number of donors to The Police Children’s Charity also modestly increased in 2024.
We spent some time in 2024 laying the groundwork for some projects such as an overhaul of our IT infrastructure and
solar panels on the rooves of both Centres alongside a variety of other projects. We hope to deliver on all of these and a number of improvements to our treatment plans, in 2025. There is always lots of work that goes on behind the scenes at our centres, and although our patients and visitors are quite rightly most closely focussed on their treatment by the clinical team, there are a number of unsung heroes who work diligently behind the scenes in the operational support functions such as Housekeeping, Maintenance, the Kitchen and Dining Room, Accounts and other administrative support areas, without whom the clinical treatment would just not be possible. This was very much in evidence to me at both Centres during the recent bad weather (and so far this 
year we have seen snow, flooding and wind, I am hoping a heatwave might be next !), when many of the operational support team went above and beyond to keep the centres running and ensure that our patients were superbly looked after.
As well as the core activity treating patients, we have also been immersed in a variety of other engagements. We hosted a number of police officers and staff from Humberside, Cheshire and Lancashire for Wellbeing Stays at Harrogate and are in the process of planning a number of Wellbeing Breaks for different Forces and groups at both Centres.
We ran the first Retired Officer Wellbeing Course of the year at our Auchterarder centre and we have been ensuring that we make the most of our superb conferencing facilities at both centres to generate some always welcome income for the PTC. I have recorded a radio interview and also contributed to a local tv programme over the last few weeks where I always try and convey the message of how hard our police officers work, how physically demanding and stressful their jobs are and how much we would benefit from government financial support to run our charity. This will not be an overnight fix but I am disappointed by the vocal support that government ministers heap on policing. When we suggest a visit or the provision of some funding for the PTC, everything goes quiet. We have not given up though and will continue to battle on.
Our first formal visitor to the PTC this year was Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine from Northumbria. Despite well over 30 years of police service, she had not visited the
PTC before but was hugely impressed by our facilities and treatment plans. That same night we hosted a conference for Team Police who endeavour to support wellbeing in policing through active participation in sport. There is a clear synergy between their work and that of the PTC. At the end of that week, I hosted Ben Pearson and Dan Stanek who run PTSD 1965, which as the name suggests, is a group who support wellbeing in policing. Both Ben and Dan know first-hand the challenges that the modern police officer has to deal with and they organised a charity dinner last year which raised £6300 for the PTC. They have now nominated us as their beneficiary charity again in October of this year so it was an opportunity to host them for a meeting and lunch at Harrogate to thank them for their work and talk about some of their future plans.
I should also thank the Scottish Police Benevolent Fund (SPBF) for another extremely generous grant that they have made to the PTC which 
has come through recently. This is one of several very large donations that they have made to the PTC in recent years. This latest grant has been used to purchase a number of pieces of fitness equipment at PTC Auchterarder including an ice bath. This has proved to be incredibly popular (to my complete amazement as I felt putting my hand in to test the temperature was being brave, never mind the full immersion that many of our patients seem to “enjoy” doing)! More E-Bikes were purchased and some other items of fitness equipment together with planned outdoor works to improve the Centre. We are extremely lucky to have the SPBF amongst our supporters, they are an example of an organisation which truly puts the welfare and wellbeing of their officers at the heart of what they do, and follow this up with practical and financial support including very welcome regular donations to the PTC.
Overall, on reflection, 2024 passed in a whirlwind full of achievements both clinically and beyond at both of our centres, and January has started in the same vein. Do please continue to donate to the PTC and apply for admission when you need to. We hope to work closely with you in ensuring that we remain here delivering the very best clinical treatment when you most need it.
That’s it for this month’s Blog. Thank you all for your support in 2024 and stay safe.
Patrick Cairns
CEO PTC and TPCC
