When coronavirus placed the NHS in a Level 4 incident, its staff in Lincolnshire were placed under extreme pressure to respond. Whilst many national NHS organisations focused on delivering mandated support for their own staff, the three providers and one commissioner in the county quickly came together to develop a consistent and broad health and wellbeing package for all 14,000 staff, extending this support to all primary care employees across the county.
This package was innovative and extensive, as per the attached overview.
Key achievements include:
• Establishment of a 7 day a week helpline for any staff member to contact with concerns re work or personal issues.
• Establishment of daily information updates to all staff regarding the national and local situation, alongside immediate and continuous updates to all staff intranets, social media channels, and team briefing processes. These comms were extended where appropriate to staff of stakeholders such as social care, charities and public sector partners.
• Extension of specialist mental health support via in house experts and external resources for staff to access at any time
• Provision of practical solutions, advice and support systems to ease personal worries surrounding health, finances, remote working requirements
• Early delivery of staff testing and risk assessment processes (ahead of national requirement). Additional support for ‘at risk’ groups, such as BAME networks and translation of key guideline materials into other languages and BSL
• Significant emotional wellbeing measures, ranging from chaplaincy, peer support, coaching, ‘wobble rooms’, through to counselling and mediation services, carers passports, and updated staff handbook materials
These examples are just a snapshot of the dedicated support offered universally to support our NHS team as we faced our biggest challenge to date, focusing on delivery by the team for the team.
Our sickness rates remained amongst the lowest in the country throughout the peak, and the care we delivered as a result meant Lincolnshire remains one of the lowest affected areas in the country.
You can find the full staff wellbeing package HERE and HERE
This is a great guide to setting up and maintaining a safe space for staff guide to setting up and maintaining a safe space for staff
