Showing how we care for our people

We’re thrilled to be shortlisted for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) People Management Awards for Best Health and Well-being initiative . We hope to report that we’ve won at the awards ceremony on 21 September. Until then, here’s why we think we’re winners already. ?

We deliver specialist mental health and learning disability services and some highly specialised national services, including helping people in mental health crisis, autistic spectrum disorder diagnosis, and support for people living with addictions, eating disorders, and physical problems with psychological causes.

We care for the most vulnerable patients, who are often in crisis. It’s a unique set of challenges which takes its toll.

Workforce is one of the biggest strategic risks for NHS trusts. And people matter: we could do nothing without them. We need to support people to look after themselves, physically, mentally, and financially.

Our People Plan is delivering nationally-leading approaches to some of our biggest challenges – supporting staff after critical incidents, menopause, and the cost-of-living crisis. And it’s working - driving an increase in positive responses to the staff survey question of “My organisation is proactively supporting my health and wellbeing” to 75.3%, 22 points higher than the NHS average.

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How our People Plan is delivering on staff wellbeing?

We have a comprehensive health and wellbeing strategy and during 2022 we focused on three areas.

1.???Cost of living

With inflation continuing to be way beyond the government’s target and Bank of England base rates making the cost of borrowing more expensive, we were concerned to make sure we could provide support to our staff in the best ways possible.

Through a dedicated survey in February 2022, we asked people what support they would need to help with the increasing cost of living. As a result, we were able to put together a comprehensive package of measures based on what people said would make the most difference to them.

From increasing the milage rate to offset the rising price of fuel, through providing free food so people can eat during their shifts to offering a way to access wages early, we listened and worked hard to help people where we can.

So far, we’ve invested ￡275,000 in cost-of-living initiatives, including giving all staff (including bank staff) vouchers, the chance to buy and sell leave, and a crisis support fund.

Check out our staff cost of living offer on our website .

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2.???Critical incident support

As a mental health trust, it’s not unusual for staff to be subjected to violence by patients, deal with deaths of service users, or witness patients harming themselves. A critical incident is a stressful event with the potential to overwhelm people’s usual coping mechanisms.

We needed to support staff’s wellbeing after critical incidents. So, we launched our Critical Incident Staff Support Pathway, or CrISSP for short.

We believe we are the only mental health trust with a dedicated co-ordinator and to invest in peer supporters for this rapid support programme. In 2022 we trained 21 people to debrief in pairs, supporting people as quickly as three days after an incident. Response times have reduced since we appointed a co-ordinator. So far, we’ve supported over 400 staff.

Group sessions enable experiences, coping strategies, and reactions to be shared. The sessions facilitate a supportive conversation, destigmatising trauma reactions, creating a shared understanding, building team support and, where needed, encouraging early signposting to specialist interventions.

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3.???Menopause

Our workforce is 72% female, with 53% aged over 40. Research by the Fawcett Society shows 1 in 10 women aged 45-55 had left their job, 14% had reduced their working hours and 8% hadn’t applied for a promotion due to symptoms.

The menopause presents a significant threat to our people’s health and wellbeing, impacting their ability to provide great care. Linked to our “we are caring” value, we needed to start a more informed conversation.

Menopause is now integrated into our annual staff wellbeing assessments, we’ve rolled out new Menopause Guidance, and in spring 2023 presented about our menopause initiatives at the Positive Practice in Mental Health network, ensuring we are sharing our great practice with colleagues across the NHS.??

Anyone can choose to attend training to become a Menopause Advocate, which covers how to have supportive conversations. All managers have been offered this training. ?

We were the first NHS Trust to run a dedicated menopause event in April 2022 which featured 23 experts and was attended by over 350 people from across the country, including community groups, elected councillors, and staff.???

Read more about why this issue is important from our Head of Staff Wellbeing Alex Cowman .

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What success looks like

In our latest quarterly survey, 75.3% of people agree: My organisation is proactively supporting my health and wellbeing, 22 higher than NHS overall.

92.4% of people know where to access financial wellbeing support (+29.8 compared to NHS overall).

Staff turnover reduced from 10.83% to 10.03% in 22-23.

In the latest annual NHS Staff Survey our staff engagement remained static between 2021 and 2022, which is good in the context of national industrial action.

King’s Fund research demonstrates patient perception of quality of care is affected by staff engagement. Based on increasing responses in 2022/23, around 90% of patients rate their experience good or very good. Our trust scored in the top 20% nationally for 14/39 questions on Community Mental Health Service User Survey 2022.

638 people (16.8% of our entire staff base) have used Wagestream, for which we cover fees (￡1.75/drawdown). Positivity about ambient food prompted further investment. We raised the mileage rate from 56p to 63p. Over 2,000 out of 3,847 people have viewed our cost-of-living resources pack. Our crisis fund awarded over ￡2,000 in grants.

We’ve supported over 400 staff in around 100 critical incident support sessions with the following feedback.

·????????100% would recommend the support

·????????97.5% felt the group session was helpful

·????????97.5% felt their worries were taken seriously

Here’s a few comments we’ve picked up on the way.

“[I] needed to cover bills this [crisis fund] was so helpful plus much appreciated that no fees are put on at this time.”

“(The food) made me feel valued and supported. Made me able to carry on with my working day without worry.”

“I felt listened to and compassion from the facilitator.”

“It feels like the trust cares about me, and I haven’t felt like that since I started going through the menopause.”

Watch out for more in-depth case studies about our three areas of staff wellbeing coming soon.?