SHC funding for Staff Wellbeing Advisor

Following the sustained workload pressures of the pandemic and the traumatic experiences that many staff went through, there is evidence of rising long term mental health absence and increased levels of burnout across the NHS as measured via the NHS staff survey. Results showed that burnout is not just restricted to staff who worked on covid wards but that the sustained, significant workload levels since the early days of the pandemic have impacted across all staff groups.

Many NHS staff work in a highly pressurised environment and their work is complex, intense and can be emotionally challenging. This can have an impact on staff wellbeing which in turn affects their ability to compassionately care for patients. More recently research into post Covid recovery has found that resilience is dependent on the team and the binds between team members and that strengthening the bonds of team members will aid recovery and resilience  (Prof Neil Greenberg NHS employers conference December 2022) thus making peer support more important.

Sheffield Hospitals Charity has funded a full-time Wellbeing Advisor who works across the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT. Their role is to actively promote the wellbeing support available to staff, emotional, physical and financial and to recruit and train Wellbeing Champions across the Trust that work alongside their colleagues to help them reach frontline staff. The champions encourage colleagues to take breaks to pause and reflect and keep hydrated even when busy as dehydration can impact on cognitive decision making skills. They make sure that staff know about the emotional, financial and physical (including menopause) support available when they need it and encourage colleagues to take steps to look after themselves for example by taking breaks outside in places such as the Charity funded secret Garden at NGH and encourage regular wellbeing conversations moving their teams from a reactive to a proactive culture of wellbeing.