Caring for the mental health and psychological wellbeing of the NHS' people is essential in delivering world class care and patient safety. COVID-19 thrust front line NHS staff under a spotlight; but as the applause fades, the people who make-up the NHS will be asked to carry on.
The day-to-day challenges facing NHS workers have never been so stark. Researchers at King's College London surveyed staff in nine ICUs across England about how they coped during the pandemic - 45% of 709 respondents met the threshold for probable clinical significance for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (39%), severe anxiety (11%), problem drinking (7%) and severe depression (6%). In August, NHS Providers surveyed 140 leaders from NHS Trusts and Foundations across England, almost all (99%) said they were extremely or moderately concerned by the current level of burnout across the workforce. The Doctor's Association UK undertook a poll of 1,758 doctors across the UK, when asked where they saw themselves working in the next one-to-three years, 65% (1,143) of respondents said they would be leaving the NHS; 45% cited the impact of the pandemic on their mental health as a driving factor in their considerations.
This conference programme will provide delegates the following benefits of attending:
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust identified barriers in its own internal culture that had prevented the adoption of an environment where staff felt supported and empowered to learn from situations where care has not gone as expected - the Trust undertook work to establish a transparent, open, 'Just and Learning Culture' that asked "what was responsible, not who was responsible".
The Trust worked with internationally recognised expert in restorative justice and author of best-selling book 'Just Culture', Professor Sidney Dekker, as well as assessing best practices in industries like airlines, nuclear technology, oil and exploration as workforces that engage with daily tasks knowing that there is always an element of risk. Mersey Care introduced initiatives and recommendations to promote openness and transparency in order to accelerate the rate of care improvement at the Trust:
This presentation will be delivered by Kirsty Brewerton, formerly a band 5 staff nurse at a busy NHS accident and emergency department. Kirsty left her role due to the emotional and mental health pressures compounded by staffing shortages in the NHS and will be discussing the experience; sharing her perspective on what can be done to improve access to mental health support for NHS staff.
A grassroots, non-profit campaigning group ran by doctors, for doctors - EveryDoctor works in pursuit of universally decent, safe working conditions for doctors; as well as challenging misleading media messaging about the NHS workforce and promoting fair, evidence-based thinking in health-related policy. Dr Julia Patterson is a leading campaigner in the fight against public sector cuts that are depleting NHS resources at the expense of patient safety and workforce morale. This presentation will look at prospective models of strengthening the interaction between doctors, bodies that represent them in the workplace and campaigns that address issues affecting delivery of care in the NHS - informed by international experts in democratic and political campaigning.
The Health Foundation has produced a series of publications analysing NHS England staff trends and making policy recommendations to sustain the NHS workforce. The fourth annual NHS workforce trends report (November 2019) provided a detailed analysis of long-term trends and insights into the size and composition of the NHS England workforce. Falling Short: the NHS Workforce Challenge addresses shortages in nursing, general practice and primary care as well as looking to other pressure points like training new student nurses to deliver appropriate levels of care, retention of existing staff and the political context in which international recruitment programmes are taking place. The report concluded that the NHS will need to recruit 5,000 international nurses per-annum in order to prevent increases in unfilled posts - latest figures demonstrate just 1,600 international recruits came to the NHS in 2017/18. Nursing is significantly understaffed and pressurised - the modest growth in nurses working within the NHS is outstripped by demand; with vacancies reaching reaching almost 44,000 in the first quarter of 2019/20 - equivalent to 12% of the nursing workforce.
This presentation will look at a series of high-impact policy actions that could be at the heart of a workforce implementation plan, including:
Local authorities have always had a role in promoting the wider determinants of public health and maintaining service provision. This session will review policies and initiatives backed by local authorities to support the mental health and wellbeing of NHS staff, including:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the sickness absence rate among NHS staff in England reached its highest level in more than a decade according to NHS Digital; psychiatric illnesses like anxiety, stress and depression were the most widely-cited reason for taking leave. The worst impacted region was London, where the sickness rate increased from 4% (the lowest of any English region) in January, to 7.2% in the pandemic. Even before COVID-19, experts warned that 9 in 10 ambulance staff had experienced stress or poor mental health; it comes as little surprise, that ambulance staff recorded the highest rate of sickness absence during the pandemic.
The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust has been recognised by the Healthcare Peoples Management Association for its development of the LINC initiative. LINC – Listening, Informal, Non-judgemental, Confidential – is a peer support scheme that provides fundamental training in counselling skills for Trust staff that volunteer for LINC; once equipped with the skills, they are able to provide confidential listening service to colleagues. First piloted in 2003, LINC has grown considerably; with 100+ trained staff providing peer support and more than 17% of the Trust’s staff having accessed the service. This presentation will look at the practical steps an NHS organisation can take to assist with establishing similar peer support services for their staff.
We'll be working with venues to ensure lunch at our events is as delicious as ever and caters for a range of dietary preferences - whilst being served in a safe and seamless manner. Some of the new measures we will be introducing to this effect are:
Where possible, we will request food is sourced locally to reduce food miles, use seasonal vegetables, red tractor certified meat and eggs from free range hens.
Representative from the Greater Manchester Resilience Hub (invited)
The NHS is setting up 40 new mental health hubs for its staff across England who have struggled during the pandemic. NHS personnel will be able to receive advice and be referred for support from psychologists, mental health nurses and recovery workers. Frontline staff will be encouraged to engage with the service(s) and hubs will proactively reach-out to staff deemed to be in the highest risk groups i.e. those who work in intensive care, on Covid wards and in A&E.
40 hubs will open providing one-to-one and online support, including services in London, Lancashire and Bedfordshire - modelled on the Greater Manchester Resilience Hub; established to help NHS staff who treated victims and survivors of the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017. The GM Hub has helped more than 4,000 health and social care staff since it's establishment (including during the pandemic) and this presentation will explore transferrable benefits from the GM model that can be adapted to support staff through the national NHS mental health hub initiatives.
This slot is reserved for organisations looking to engage delegates with services and opportunities that compliment conference presentation and discussion panel topics. If you're interested in delivering a Case Study, contact us on 0161 376 9007.
There has never been a greater need to recruit more doctors to the NHS. The number of doctors retiring or leaving the NHS in Lincolnshire outnumbers those entering it - this is reflected nationally in the decreasing number of recruits into Primary and Secondary care. The Lincolnshire Refugee Doctor Project is a humanitarian programme supporting refugee doctors in the area to safely practice medicine in the UK by equipping them with the skills and knowledge required to satisfy examinations in language and clinical skills. The LRDP has three core ambitions:
This presentation will take delegates through the LRDP programme; from introduction to the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) framework to sitting the International English Language Testing System exams whilst volunteering in clinical settings - all the way to leaving the scheme and entering full-time work in the NHS.
Representative from the Greater Manchester Resilience Hub (invited)
Representative from Lincolnshire Refugee Doctor Project (confirmed)
Case Study Speaker TBA
The Laura Hyde Foundation (LHF) was established in response to the tragic passing of a young naval nurse, Laura Hyde, who suffered with mental health issues whilst providing care and support for others. The Foundation's Mission Statement is: To ensure that all medical and emergency services personnel have access to the best mental health support network available. The LHF has set-out a series of actionable pledges to build and develop focused, relevant mental health support networks for those working in emergency services. This presentation will explore LHF initiatives, such as:
Sharon McDonnell is the Managing Director of Suicide Bereavement UK (SBUK) and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester (UoM). Her work is internationally recognised. Prior to setting up SBUK, Sharon worked at the Centre for Mental Health and Safety at the UoM, which is the largest suicide prevention research department internationally. During her time at the university, Sharon and her team conducted a three year study, which informed the development of evidence-based suicide bereavement training, entitled ‘Postvention Assisting Those Bereaved by Suicide’ (PABBS), which is first of its kind internationally. Sharon is currently leading a large scale national suicide bereavement survey, which aims to identify the experiences and perceived needs of those bereaved or affected by suicide. A report will be launched in 2020. Findings will be of national and international importance. Sharon has been personally bereaved by suicide.
Liam Barnes, Founder, The Laura Hyde Foundation (confirmed)
Dr Sharon McDonnell, Managing Director, Suicide Bereavement UK (confirmed)
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