NIHR grant funds partnership with NHS and social care to support staff wellbeing

The country can no longer afford to ignore the high rates of poor psychological wellbeing in health and social care staff, according to the leaders of a new five-year project led by the University of Surrey to create healthier workplaces. Poor mental health harms staff, their families, and those they support. The research team is calling for major changes to create healthier workplaces where staff can thrive.

The project is supported by a £5 million grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and will see Surrey work with colleagues from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, NHS Frimley Health Foundation Trust, the University of Sheffield, King’s College London, the University of Exeter and the Institute for Employment Studies.

Over an area that affects nearly 10 per cent of the country's population, the project team will work in partnership with five Integrated Care Systems (ICS) to address the pressing issues affecting health and social care workers, including high rates of stress, trauma, and burnout, which lead to them being too unwell to work. For too long, a focus on individual staff has obscured the need for radical culture change solutions. Thus, researchers will investigate the root causes of these issues and work with health and social care partner organisations to implement evidence-based solutions aimed at changing culture and improving the working environment. The ultimate goal of the partnership is to improve staff psychological wellbeing, creating workplaces which motivate and retain staff and allow them to thrive.

A thriving health and social care workforce is vital to attracting and retaining staff and delivering high-quality care. Yet, rates of stress, trauma, and burnout among health and care staff remain unacceptably high. NHS staff are absent from work due to illness at twice the national average, costing the NHS £12.1 billion a year. Whilst our primary focus is on healthcare staff, our strong links with adult and children's social care ensure that our findings and ideas can be adapted and applied where appropriate. In the first 18 months, we will work in partnership with ICS staff to identify which combinations of interventions could help create healthier workplaces for implementation and evaluation in the final three years of the project. Professor Cath Taylor, Professor of Healthcare Workforce Organisation and Wellbeing

To inform the ambitious, large-scale culture change interventions that will be evaluated as part of this project, the first 18 months will be focused on five key work areas:

The team will collaborate with employers, staff, and patient representatives to build research and evaluation capacity while identifying the best methods to co-create and share learning nationally.

The project will seek to better understand the needs of marginalised and overlooked or forgotten staff groups, such as those in less visible roles or internationally qualified professionals.

The project will draw on examples of international healthcare and best practices from other industries to inform innovative workplace initiatives.

The project team will determine how best to link local and national NHS workforce and wellbeing data to identify areas of need (e.g. specific staff groups) and evaluate interventions/strategies to improve wellbeing.

The team will develop an economic framework that can take context into account to help employers assess the costs and benefits of various healthy workplace initiatives.

We're really excited to be working in this new and innovative way, not just creating evidence to be disseminated to NHS colleagues and hopefully later implemented, but, from the beginning, working in real partnership to co-design interventions with staff to make a difference. We want to make a step change in how psychological wellbeing is tackled by focusing not only on individual staff or on discrete single interventions but also by taking a systems approach to influence real culture change and create a work environment where staff can thrive. We know this work is ambitious - but it needs to be. In 5 years' time, we aim to have improved staff working lives and the retention of staff, leaving a legacy of knowledge and skills of how to create healthy workplaces where staff can flourish. Professor Jill Maben, Professor of Health Services Research and Nursing