Good to work with @ProfNGreenberg & team on this bit.ly/3v1qINt. Mental health of #NHS staff probably wasn’t very good going into the pandemic. I say probably because before #Covid19 there was very little data tracking psychological health of the workforce. 1/
But in this survey with > 6000 respondents, across three time points, the scale and severity of mental health symptoms reported is hard to ignore. 2/
During the peak of the pandemic in Jan 2021 more than 50% of all staff met threshold criteria for at least one of the following: severe anxiety, severe depression, harmful use of alcohol or probable PTSD. 3/
Other research tells us that, with these levels of mental health symptoms we should expect to see impairment of people’s ability to function in the workplace. So we added a measure - the Work & Social Adjustment Scale - to characterise that 3/
Here again we found high rates, with more than 50% of staff meeting the threshold for severity, meaning that a large fraction of all staff in this survey reported that they felt impaired in their ability to perform their tasks at work because of their mental health 4/
This is important. The well-being of #NHS staff is not just something we should strive for if we can, as a “nice to have”. It impacts the safety & quality of the care we deliver & so is central & essential to everything we do 5/
Improving well-being isn’t easy or cheap. It involves many things including investment in the fabric of the buildings in which we work, our patterns of work & having a properly staffed service 6/
Perpetually stretching staff to cover the gap between supply and demand for healthcare can only continue to injure the workforce, worsen staff retention & reduce the quality & safety of care that can be delivered 7/
We often cast this as a difficult choice, between investing in what patients need & what staff need. But in truth there is no choice. We must look after the staff so that they can look after the patients. 8/
Here again we found high rates, with more than 50% of staff meeting the threshold for severity, meaning that a large fraction of all staff in this survey reported that they felt impaired in their ability to perform their tasks at work because of their mental health 4/
This is important. The well-being of #NHS staff is not just something we should strive for if we can, as a “nice to have”. It impacts the safety & quality of the care we deliver & so is central & essential to everything we do 5/
Improving well-being isn’t easy or cheap. It involves many things including investment in the fabric of the buildings in which we work, our patterns of work & having a properly staffed service 6/
Perpetually stretching staff to cover the gap between supply and demand for healthcare can only continue to injure the workforce, worsen staff retention & reduce the quality & safety of care that can be delivered 7/
We often cast this as a difficult choice, between investing in what patients need & what staff need. But in truth there is no choice. We must look after the staff so that they can look after the patients. 8/
And apologies for amateur hour on creating this thread. I *think* I’ve fixed it now.
Took a big team to pull this study altogether but special thanks to @mjtoolan @DrKateKanga & @SarahElsheikh15 for doing so much of the heavy lifting.
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