The Psychological Support Service we fund at Barts Health NHS Trust supports NHS staff to talk, reflect and find strategies to cope with the pressures of their roles.
Thanks to £1m of our funding, the #TeamBartsHealth Psychological Support Service was launched in 2021 to support Barts Health NHS Trust staff through life’s tough moments. This was made possible thanks to generous donations during our Covid-19 appeal.
Because of its incredible success, we awarded an additional £1.7m in 2022 to fund the service for a further three years.
Through the Psychological Support Service, the more than 24,000 members of staff at each of the five hospitals in Barts Health now have access to dedicated practitioner psychologists. It offers both one-to-one and group sessions, providing a safe and confidential space for staff to talk, reflect and find strategies to cope with the pressures of their roles.
Many of these sessions are hosted in private rooms in the permanent wellbeing hubs that we funded at each hospital.
In its first four years the Psychological Support Service has made a significant difference to staff wellbeing across Barts Health:
“We are so grateful to the charity for their ongoing support for us as a team and for the people at Barts Health. We are so pleased to help reduce the chance that anyone at Barts Health will experience feelings of isolation.”Carla Croft, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and service lead
Staff who have accessed the service report feeling more valued, listened to, and better able to cope with the stresses and responsibilities of their work. The most common themes have been trauma, anxiety, general stress and wellbeing, low mood, work-life balance, grief and loss. Several staff have accessed the service after being affected by conflicts across the world. 33% of the people who have accessed the service are at risk of violence or self-harm, meaning over 700 colleagues have been helped to increase their safety.
Survey results suggest the service brings substantial improvements to mental wellbeing, burnout and staff retention. Early findings suggest there may be an improvement on absenteeism and staff turnover. 38% of service users who reported suicidal thoughts reported no suicidal thoughts after four months of working with the service.
The Psychological Support Service not only benefits NHS staff members, it also improves patient care and experience, as well-supported staff can provide the best care possible. 78% of service users surveyed said they were more engaged at work after working with the service and 83% said they were coping better in their role.
Due to its success, the service has also taken on a UK-wide leadership role. They share best practice, challenges and opportunities in NHS psychological support through a special interest group spanning 42 NHS Trusts.
Following a successful pilot in 2016, Megan Tjasink was awarded a Barts Charity Clinical Research Training Fellowship to find out if art therapy sessions could support the wellbeing of Barts Health staff.
Participants took part in six weekly 90-minute art therapy sessions, with each workshop having a specific focus and set of aims.
In a safe and welcoming space, participants were able to reflect, share, and reconnect – exploring emotions that can often be hard to articulate verbally.
Results from the first controlled trial have shown staff see the sessions as transformative, helping them process stress, grief and exhaustion while strengthening relationships with colleagues.
Due to its success, the programme has been embedded within Barts Health’s Psychological Support Service and is available across all five hospitals.
Barts Health staff taking part in an art therapy session.
Chanelle is a Paediatric Staff Nurse at The Royal London Hospital who started to feel overwhelmed after being redeployed to Adult Critical Care during the pandemic. She accessed one-to-one sessions with her hospital’s psychologist.
Chanelle explains: “If I hadn’t looked for help, I worried that I would have had a breakdown, and I wouldn’t have stayed in nursing.”
Chanelle is a Staff Nurse at The Royal London Hospital.
“I had three sessions and felt I could talk freely with her. The sessions gave me space to open up and be honest. It massively changed the way I saw things; I never wanted to talk about my feelings before. But after speaking with her I began speaking to colleagues and it was refreshing to see that everyone was experiencing the same things as me. Since then, I’ve been encouraging my colleagues to tap into the sessions too – the psychologists have a real level of expertise.”
Thank you to our donors for making important projects like this possible and thank you to Capula Investment Management for helping fund this project.
At Barts Charity, we support the motivation, recognition and wellbeing of staff at Barts Health NHS Trust. We’ve invested in different ways to support staff. This has included research to better understand ways that burnout can be reduced for our NHS colleagues.
Thanks to our funding, staff at NHS Barts Health hospitals are finding support for mental health and wellbeing through art therapy.
Remi Apata-Omisore is the Community Connector at the heart of the Social Prescribing programme, which offers practical advice and emotional support to those who have recently had heart surgery.
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