Maintaining staff safety and wellbeing

Ensuring staff stay safe and well is essential to their ability to deliver the best care to patients. Providing resources and support services at pace is important to improving and maintaining staff wellbeing and morale. These innovations show a number of examples developed to maintain, monitor, and improve staff safety and wellbeing.

Innovative posters help maintain social distancing

To help keep staff and the local community safe, and ensure they follow social distancing guidelines, a Trust has designed a creative communication strategy. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Reduce anxiety in your team with five questions

To reduce anxiety and support teams during COVID-19, the Hertfordshire and West Essex Health and Care Academy used the ‘Five questions’ tool in their Integrated Care System Leadership programme. The tool enables managers to ‘check-in’ rather than ‘check-up’ on their team members. The five questions were designed to create a space for compassionate conversation. Find out more in our innovation summary. 

Using Liberating Structures to support one another

In response to COVID-19 a number of NHS staff were advised to shield and work from home. This affected over 600 members of staff at Barts Health NHS Trust. Applying techniques from the Liberating Structures (LS) approach the Trust have created an online community of ‘BartsShielders’. Find out more in our innovation summary. 

Increase Joy in the workplace

15 seconds, 30 minutes is a social movement founded by staff members at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It creates a different approach to Quality Improvement, by helping staff improve their workplace for others. By encouraging staff to take 15 seconds to improve a task and make it as efficient as possible, this can save someone else 30 minutes further down the line. This approach has been shown to improve patient care and spread joy in the workplace. Recently, for Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, their 15s30m campaign has enabled staff to share learning from their experiences of redeployment during COVID-19, to improve their delivery of care and working practices within teams. You can read more about their experience in this blog, and find out more about how you can start your own mission by visiting the dedicated website. 

Resources for parents and carers

There are a range of great resources available to parents and carers on ParentClub. These range from hints and tips to dealing with household budgets, healthy eating, fun activities to try out, and even how to protect your own health and wellbeing as well as your child’s. You can access all this and more on their dedicated website, or by following them on facebook or instagram.

Using infographics to increase staff confidence and reduce the need for clinic consultation

The use of infographics to display guidance can help summarise information into a more user-friendly format. In response to COVID-19, one team took action to reduce the overwhelming number of updates being distributed, to help staff feel more confident in the care they were providing. Find out more in our innovation summary.

“You said, we did”

Showing appreciation through listening

A Respiratory Medicine ward in NHS Lothian has created a new way to show staff, patients and their relatives the importance of their feedback, and how it can improve services across the Board. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Resources to help staff manage bereavement in the workplace

To help support health and social care staff who may have experienced bereavement either personally, or in the workplace, as a result of COVID-19, NHS Education for Scotland are hosting a series of webinars. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Resources supporting children, young people and their families

With the vast array of resources available to support families and NHS staff who work with them, NHS Education for Scotland have collated a selection of resources and created a “helpful starting point for busy parents, families and professionals alike”. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Showing appreciation across the Board 

Recognising hardworking staff can help raise staff morale. This is particularly important during COVID-19 as staff continue to face new challenges. Responding to staff feedback, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust recently launched their inaugural ‘Admin and Clerical Appreciation Week’. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Getting creative about physical health

Creating fun ways to improve physical health and morale can also have a positive impact on both staff and patient mental wellbeing. East London NHS Foundation Trust launched their inaugural digital Bedfordshire and Luton Wellbeing Games, with over 300 members of staff and service users getting involved. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Supporting shielding NHS staff return to work with ease

Returning to work after shielding could be daunting for NHS staff, therefore ‘Our NHS People’ have created a guide to help line managers and their team members welcome colleagues back. It also includes information for those who have been shielding to consider prior to returning to work. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Keeping staff connected

A new platform that helps staff stay informed with a quick glance

Working during COVID-19, it is important that staff can access up-to-date guidance quickly and stay connected with colleagues across their organisation. StaffLink is a new platform and app launched by NHS Fife to help staff, acting as a single source of new guidance, news and ways to connect with colleagues. Find out more in our innovation summary.

Staff wellbeing tools and resources

Maintaining staff safety and wellbeing is essential during COVID-19. To help support their staff, boards have created a number of innovative ways to help staff cope with increased levels of stress and anxiety. This round-up highlights a variety of tools, resources and creative innovations we have seen from across the system (NHS Lothian, NHS GGC, NHS Lothian, NHS GGC, NHS Grampian, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust). These include setting up staff helplines, new processes for staff to check-in during shifts and even fun activities on the ward to boost morale and measure staff wellbeing. The round-up also provides an overview of training available from NHS Education for Scotland and NHS Employers which staff and managers can refer to, and engage with, in their own time.

You can find further information in the round-up document of staff wellbeing tools and resources.

Creating conditions to maintain staff safety and wellbeing

Healthcare staff worldwide are experiencing a wider range of feelings and anxieties whilst working during COVID-19 and therefore require support to keep them safe and well. Meeting this challenge has led to the implementation of many creative solutions such as:

• The King's Fund's COVID Trauma Response Working Group’s guidance for early interventions to “foster resilience, reduce burnout and reduce the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder” with examples from:
       - NHS GGC ‘s resources and delivery of new services to provide high-quality psychological and well-being services for staff
       - Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS FT ‘re-connecting toolkit’ and accompanying resources to aide staff returning to their teams or joining new teams
       - NHS Lothian’s Staff Wellbeing Huddle' template which provides both opportunities for staff to have open and honest conversations and a way for senior staff and managers to identify staff needs quickly
• The Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) in New York new multidisciplinary MSHS Employee, Faculty and Trainee Crisis Support Task Force to respond to staff needs and support staff across the organisation. We highlight the key steps that were taken and how through a collaborative approach, multiple new resources and services were implemented.

You can find out further information about these experiences in the summary of guidance on creating conditions to maintain staff safety and wellbeing.