case study POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
www.thehrdirector.com
stressing the point
Birmingham Children’s Hospital has taken an open approach to managing stress and maintaining the levels of experience that make a difference to patients and their families. Two year into a revamped wellbeing initiative, the signs are encouraging.
B
irmingham Children’s Hospital is one of the UK’s leading providers of paediatric care, treating and supporting 90,000
children, young people and their families, each year. Life-threatening conditions and crises are part of everyday routines given the work in treating the most complex conditions. The hospital is also home to Europe’s largest single-site intensive care unit for children, a major trauma centre and mental health services. The hospital’s team of 3,700 people need to provide the all-important human touch, care and support. Working with often seriously ill children can, understandably, have an impact on employees, many of whom deal with sensitive and emotional situations on a daily basis, having conversations about end-of-life care or coping with the consequences of incidents and trauma. We know that resilient and happy teams are able to offer the best possible care. They provide the X-factor in the treatment.
ARTICLE BY SARA BROWN
HEAD OF EDUCATION &
ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
Keeping up
a relentless positivity is hard enough in the average workplace - what about
organisations dealing daily with illness and trauma?
In 2014 we put together a revamped package of health and wellbeing activities to cover the basics of sleep, diet and exercise, alongside training for senior nurses and managers around stress awareness, and the opportunity to learn new skills such as mindfulness. An integral part of the offering was a new counselling service, 24/7 expert telephone support service and face-to-face counselling. Working with a new psychological wellbeing specialist in CiC meant we knew we had a full service in place. Any employee can contact the telephone service for a confidential discussion with a trained counsellor. The issue is worked through in conversations, or can be ‘triaged’, with the employee referred on for off-site, face-to-face counselling. Under the new service no-one has to wait more than a week for an appointment, and usually no more than two days. A specific comms and marketing strategy raises awareness of the service and ensures uptake of the service, trying to help make talking to the service a ’normal’ option with no stigma attached. That’s also included in the standard leaflet and intranet material for existing staff and through our induction programmes, and posting material in physical locations around the hospital where employees might go when they need time to themselves.
What we’ve learnt is that it’s possible to build an approach based on open and on-going conversations about the impact of stress, that provides more of a sense of security and support. We also know that our nurses and managers have an important part to play in spotting signs of issues and encouraging the honesty that’s needed. Staff under pressure have found an important outlet for talking about and dealing with their challenges. In the hospital’s staff survey of 2013, 40 percent of employees said they had experienced work-related stress in the past 12 months; in 2015, following the introduction of the counselling support and other wellbeing activities, this had fallen to 34 percent. In the period from 1 November 2014 to the end October 2015, 11 percent of employees had used the service at some stage. Commonly, the conversations related to dealing with raised levels of pressure and problems with relationships (which could be at work or home). Forty-four percent of people who accessed the telephone service went on to take the opportunity available for face-to-face counselling. We encourage a culture of openness here - it’s all part of our sense of being part of a community. If there’s a problem, people come forward and we tackle it constructively. We have to be realistic and understand that in a working environment like ours stress will occur. Our children and families do not expect or want our nurses to be smiling robots. What’s needed, though, is confidence. Confidence that any of us, at whatever level in the organisation, can talk about how we’re feeling; that there’s no stigma; that the right systems are being run by the right people, and are all in place to help.
FOR FURTHER INFO
www.bch.nhs.uk
34 thehrdirector SEPTEMBER 2016
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