BY its very nature, police work is among the most stressful and frequently dangerous of all jobs.

But the findings of a report highlighting the staggeringly high levels of sickness and early retirement by officers are, as Jack Straw says, "unacceptable."

First, there is the cost to the taxpayer.

There is a £210million-a-year sickness bill and more than £700million a year in pensions costs, with more and more of that money coming from the budget for actual policing.

Then, there is the baleful effect on the fight against crime.

One and a half million working days were lost last year through sickness - equivalent to 6,600 officers a day being off the job.

But there is evidence, particularly in the case of early retirement on medical grounds, that much of this is not a natural consequence of the job, arduous and strain-filled though it may often be.

It cannot be so if, as the report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary shows, the levels of retirement through sickness range from 16 per cent in the Kent and Wiltshire forces to 77 per cent on Merseyside. Quite rightly, the Home Secretary calls for better management of sickness in the police service.

And his suggestion that other forces should follow Lancashire's example in reducing levels of sickness is one that shows that shows improvements can quickly be made.

For the county force, which once had retirements on medical grounds running at more than 60 per cent, managed to cut them from 49 per cent in 1996 to 41 per cent in the last 12 months.

There has, of course, to be sympathy and help for the genuinely sick.

But there is scope for cutting out early medical retirement as a device for getting rid of officers who are no longer motivated or who simply want to leave without incurring the financial penalties that straightforward resignation would entail.

And it would be useful for the Home Office to make comparisons with other professions, to confirm what the "natural" sickness levels of the job are, so that the taxpayer and the fight against crime do not suffer from what already smacks of a cosy arrangement in too many forces.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.