It's Okay to Ask for Help...
The Primary Care Training Hub have collated the below resources to support The Primary Care Workforce and beyond with various elements of health and wellbeing. The below resources are free to the public or free to NHS staff, and offers a wide range of guidance and support.
NHS England and Improvement have commissioned the Institute of Employment Studies to complete a survey of the wellbeing and resilience levels of staff in primary care. The findings provide valuable insight into the wellbeing of primary care staff and help national and regional teams to respond to the needs of the workforce.
The health and wellbeing support is available on the NHSEI FutureNHS Space. This includes the award-winning coaching programme, support for managing patients and promotional resources to share with teams.
For Support:
Call the confidential helpline: 0191 223 2030
Email: Hubstheword@cntw.nhs.uk
Complete the online support from here
Click here to access The Hub.
Some of the feedback received...
Our Helpline (010 223 2030) - This helpline offers a listening ear to help you find the support you need.
Whether you’re feeling stressed or burned out, exhausted or at breaking point, worried about how much you and your team can give, our experienced practitioners are available who understand what you're going through.
Lines are open 9.30am – 6pm Monday - Friday excluding Bank Holidays. If you call outside these hours and need to speak to a practitioner then this will be arranged and a practitioner will call you back at the soonest suitable time.
Wellbeing Diary – Simple way to track your mood and understand what helps you stay well.
This Wellbeing Diary is a self-help tool which will ask you questions about your physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing each time you log on, to help you map changes in your wellbeing over time.
Tracking your wellbeing in this way can help you to make sense of how you are feeling, and identify the things in your life which help to maintain your health and mood. The diary will also signpost you to further support for the things that you may be struggling with.
You can find more information on how to use the Wellbeing Diary here.
Please click here to access the Wellbeing Diary.
Wellbeing Toolkit– Short and practical self-help exercises to help improve your wellbeing.
The Wellbeing Toolkit provides a collection of videos and resources that you can use to manage your wellbeing.
Please click here to access the Wellbeing Toolkit.
The Wellbeing Toolkit will be continually updated, if you have any suggested additions please email HubsTheWord@cntw.nhs.uk
Wellbeing Offers - Check out the range of groups, courses and online sessions.
On this page, you’ll find details of the some of the wellbeing support we can offer, such as coaching, group support, and other ways to regulate the stress in your body or mind.
Please click here to view the Wellbeing Offers.
Useful Resources - Quick access to a wide range of useful information to help you.
On this page, you will find a variety of useful resources to help and support your mental health and wellbeing. Some of the resources include access to suicide prevention, talking therapies (IAPT services), employee support services and alcohol and wellbeing.
Please click here to access the Useful Resources.
NHS England Staff Networks
NHS England are committed to creating a fairer and more diverse NHS for everyone. One of the ways we wish to achieve our ambition is through our Staff Networks, they are an important mechanism to allow colleagues to discuss their experiences, offering a safe space, and help us to shape our organisational culture to create a fairer and inclusive work environments for all.
To view the networks on the NHS England website, please click here.
Please see the network contact details below:
BAME Network: england.BME@nhs.net
Disability and Wellbeing Network: england.DAWN@nhs.net
Muslim Network: england.muslim1@nhs.net
Christian Network: england.christiannetwork@nhs.net
LGBTQIA+ Network: LGBT@nhs.net
Womens Network: england.beingvisible@nhs.net
Jewish Staff Network: jewish.network@nhs.net
Menopause Network: england.menopause@nhs.net
MultiKultural Network: england.multikultural@nhs.net
Care Experienced Staff Group: england.nhscareexperincedstaff@nhs.net
Your Wellbeing
Looking After You Too: NHS England have teamed up with coaches to provide confidential coaching and support for the Primary Care workforce.
Looking After You Too: Confidential Coaching and Support for The Primary Care Workforce: NHS England is offering free confidential coaching with experienced coaches to support primary care staff in three ways. They can help you as an individual, support you to manage your team, or help you to reflect on your career goals and ambitions.
Mind: Mind have provided small, simple steps that you can take to look after yourself and make your workplace mentally healthier.
Shout: Shout is a free, confidential, 24/7 text messaging service for anyone who is struggling to cope. Text ‘SHOUT’ to 85258 to get support for any issues including depression, anxiety, self harm, relationship problems, bullying and abuse.
NHS England Resources: NHS England have compiled a range of resources to support NHS staff that can be found by clicking on the above link. Useful links include Wellbeing Apps and Financial Wellbeing.
Money Advice Service: NHS England have been working with the Money Advice Service to improve financial wellbeing of its users, and so have compiled tools that provide financial support. Alternatively, you can call the Money Advice Service on 0800 448 0826 for free between 8:00AM and 6:00PM, Monday to Friday.
Live Well: Advice, tips and tools to help you make the best choices about your health and wellbeing.
Head Space: Head Space provide every day mindfulness support. Visit Headspace’s website to get your free Headspace Plus subscription now, just for the NHS.
How-to Guides: NHS England have provided a range of short how-to guides to help with daily issues and looking after your own as well as others wellbeings.
Self Care and Wellbeing Conversations Through Art: Sangini is working with Staff Wellbeing Hub to develop wellbeing resources by and for Black and Minoritised women and to increase awareness and the variety of offers from the Staff Wellbeing Hub. Workshops are delivered by international and national artists/facilitators. You will have a fun and relaxing experience.
Diversity and Ability Toolkit: The Accessing Disability Support Toolkit has been created in partnership with Health Education England to access additional support that will enable you to equitably access your education and employment in healthcare if you are disabled, or have a disability, learning difference, or long term health condition (including long-term effects of COVID-19 and mental health conditions).
Self-Compassion Course: The online course has been evaluated at University College London, and results show that people who complete the course have seen significant reductions in depression, anxiety, stress, shame, self-criticism, and feelings of insecurity in relationships.To access the self-compassion online course, complete this referral form or email: Hubstheword@cntw.nhs.uk.
‘Check In and Chat’: If you think you would benefit from extra social contact, you can now self-refer for free ‘Check In and Chat’ phone calls from the NHS Volunteer Responders by calling 0808 196 3646. The ‘Check In and Chat’ service involves volunteers phoning patients for a friendly chat. Where appropriate, they can encourage people to make positive changes and share information about other local services. People with additional vulnerabilities should be referred for Check In and Chat Plus to be linked with a DBS-checked volunteer.
SANEline: SANEline is a national out-of-hours charity mental health helpline offering specialist emotional support, information, and guidance to anyone affected by mental illness, including family, friends, and carers. Every day of the year, calls are answered by highly trained volunteers. You can call on 0300 304 7000 (4:00pm - 10:00pm) and the call back service can be reached on 07984967708. You can contact the organisation via email: support@sane.org.uk. SANEline also have a Textcare and 24 hour online support forum, which can be accessed via www.sane.org.uk.
OP COURAGE (Veteran Mental Health Services): NHS England has launched a campaign to raise awareness of Op COURAGE: The Veterans Mental Health and Wellbeing Service. Aimed at individuals who are due to leave the military, reservists and those who’ve served in the UK Armed Forces and are struggling with their mental health, the campaign features well known veteran JJ Chalmers, talking to other veterans about their experience of getting help from Op COURAGE. Organisations are please asked to support this important campaign using the associated assets.
Wellbeing in the Work Place
NHS Health and Wellbeing Framework: A new health and wellbeing guide has been developed by NHS England to support teams to improve their health and wellbeing through a culture-change approach. This guide is designed to empower and enable teams to come together to shape their health and wellbeing journey.
NHS Healthy Leadership Framework: A new health and wellbeing guide has been developed by NHS England to support teams to improve their health and wellbeing through a culture-change approach. This guide is designed to empower and enable teams to come together to shape their health and wellbeing journey.
Practitioner Health: We’re very pleased to announce that it is now open to everyone in any role working in primary care who is struggling to access confidential care and support. Previously, the free NHS primary care mental health and addiction service was only available to doctors, dentists and staff grade 8D or above in England, for self-referral. Please click here to view Practitoner Health. PH also provide a 24/7 crisis text service, you can access this by texting “NHSPH” to 85258.
Psychological Safety: Workplace psychological harm carries a high risk to individuals, for example depression, anxiety, irritability, poor cardiovascular and gastric health, and traumatic stress. Left unchecked such behaviours can effectively become a culture that is harmful, unequal, and toxic. The Staff Wellbeing Hub are holding multiple Masterclasses in Psychological Safety from July - November 2022. Please click here to book a place.
Wellbeing Conversations: Here you are able to book onto the national training programme from NHS England and NHS Improvement that has beenOffline designed to support NHS colleagues in having safe and effective wellbeing conversations.
Emotional Support if you are Experiencing an Investigation or Complaint: If you are struggling with feelings of hopelessness and in need of immediate help Practitioner Health have teamed up with SHOUT to create a confidential 24/7 text service - Text NHSPH to 85258. Call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and the Republic of Ireland).
Opportunity to Help Develop Resources for Black and Minoritised Staff: Sangini are working with Hub to develop Wellbeing Resources for Black & Minoritised women health and care sector staff. Sangini (a friend – in Hindi), is a Black and minoritised women led organisation with a focus on encouraging women from different communities to engage, create, share and build stronger voices by removing barriers they may face in their everyday lives. Click HERE to join an Information Session or email kainat.sangini@gmail.com for more details.
NHS Resolution Offers for those Working in Primary Care: NHS Resolution offers support to those working in primary care from across our four services: Claims Management, Practitioner Performance Advice, Primary Care Appeals and Safety and Learning. It has produced a digital brochure, Supporting Primary Care, which outlines how each service supports those working in primary care to manage and reduce concerns, disputes and claims.
Elaine Redhead Coaching Offer: Readhead Associates work with the Staff Wellbeing Hub to provide bespoke one to one coaching and mentoring to individual staff members. The main focus of this coaching is career development and retirement planning with an emphasis on developing skills and goal planning for the short, medium and long term. To access the coaching offer, complete this self-referral form or email: Hubstheword@cntw.nhs.uk.
Peer Wellbeing Sessions: Three peer wellbeing sessions are starting on 31st October 2023, one for men, an open session for anyone, and sessions for women from ethnically diverse backgrounds. These confidential sessions have been created to bring people with shared experiences together. Alongside a highly trained coach, it is a safe space to discuss and plan how to improve and maintain wellbeing, make valuable connections, and share meaningful discussions. Sign up for free here.
Supporting NHS colleagues to handle difficult situations with compassion: NHS England and NHS Improvement are continuing to invest substantial funding into supporting the wellbeing of our NHS people, and as such have procured a new training programme that is due to go live in January 2022.
“Supporting NHS colleagues to handle difficult situations with compassion” is a newly-developed training course that has been commissioned in response to a high number of requests from our NHS people who have shared that they are seeking support in how to handle difficult situations, particularly when patients present in a challenging or distressed manner. The training is designed to upskill colleagues with appropriate techniques and skills that will support them in handling difficult situations with compassion, whilst highlighting the importance of looking after your own health and wellbeing at this critical time.
This training is targeting patient facing, front line roles, particularly non-clinical roles.
View flyer here or click here to book your session.
Stress and Anxiety
Guide to Living with Worry: Psychological Tools have provided this resource to help users in rationalising their concerns in times of worry.
We Are Beyond: As well as a free downloadable resilience toolkit for NHS staff, We are beyond provide online resources such as TED talks and blogs to support with stress, mindfulness and other wellbeing topics.
Novel Psychological Programme: The Wellbeing Hub is introducing access to a novel psychological programme(G-TEP/ R-TEP) that: uses an evidence-based protocol to help you to feel less worried or upset, does not require you to talk in detail about your stressful/ traumatic experiences, is usually done in groups or teams and often online, uses eye movements and what we know about how the brain works and helps increase future resilience, by preventing build-up of stress. This intervention is brief (Two to three sessions lasting 90 minutes).
If you would like more information, contact us for an initial conversation on 0191 223 2030 or hubstheword@cntw.nhs.uk.
Looking After Others
How-to Guides: NHS England have provided a range of short how-to guides to help with daily issues and looking after others' wellbeings.
Looking After Your Team/ Career: NHS England have teamed up with coaches to provide confidential coaching and support for the Primary Care workforce. Coaches provide sessions for you and your wellbeing, your team and your career. The sessions are delivered virtually, preferably via a video platform, but telephone appointments are also available. Thousands of people have booked sessions and given positive feedback on their experience. Areas you may wish to discuss could be career planning, dealing with appraisals, role transitioning, stress and anxiety, career decisions or much more.
Recovery College Online: Providing a range of online educational courses and resources to people who might be struggling with mental health issues, families, friends, mental health workers and anyone else who might be interested. This includes over 40 free e-learning courses and Moral injury and Staff Wellbeing information. Please click here for more information.
Learning from Healthcare Staff Experiences of Attempting to Take Their Own Life: How We Co-Create Lives Worth Living: We are recruiting participants for a confidential study focused on the impact of attempting suicide in health care staff population. The first step involves an anonymous online survey (15-40 minutes) which may be followed up by an optional Interview (40 – 60 minutes). We are hoping to challenge stigma, learn about recovery, prevent suicide and create a different narrative about suicide attempts. We hope that healthcare staff who have attempted to take their own life in the past will share their experiences and learning. You can access the anonymous survey here.
If you would like to find out more about being involved in this study then please email: hubstheword@cntw.nhs.uk or Dr Paras Patel: paras.patel@cntw.nhs.uk
Support Isolated People to Self-Refer for Volunteer Calls: People who would benefit from extra social contact can now self-refer for free ‘Check In and Chat’ phone calls from the NHS Volunteer Responders by calling 0808 196 3646. Alternatively, clinicians and other primary care colleagues can directly refer people with their consent. GP practices and pharmacies can also order pre-printed posters and flyers to promote self-referral. The ‘Check In and Chat’ service involves volunteers phoning patients for a friendly chat. Where appropriate, they can encourage people to make positive changes and share information about other local services. People with additional vulnerabilities should be referred for Check In and Chat Plus to be linked with a DBS-checked volunteer.
Mental Health Crisis Tool to Support LGBTQIA+ People: learn how to provide better support to young LGBTQIA+ people in mental health crisis by completing four 15-minute learning guides as part of our LGBTQIA+ Crisis Tools. This extension of Crisis Tools has been developed by People Unlimited in collaboration with young people with lived experience.
Guidance: Looking After your Team’s Health and Wellbeing: A new health and wellbeing guide has been developed by NHS England to support teams to improve their health and wellbeing through a culture-change approach. This guide is designed to empower and enable teams to come together to shape their health and wellbeing journey, building on the NHS Health and Wellbeing Framework and the NHS Healthy Leadership Framework. If you use the guide, we would be grateful if you could complete this feedback form.
Physical Health
NHS England Resources: NHS England have compiled a range of resources to support NHS staff that can be found by clicking on the above link. Useful links include Physical Health and Wellbeing and Weight Management Programme.
Couch to 5K: This free Public Health England app gives the user step-by-step instructions and coaching to get them walking and running a 5K in just nine weeks. This can be accessed via the App Store or via Google Play.
Rise Wellbeing Hub Course and Events: Rise Wellbeing Hub are offering facilitated walks with guided Professional Trainers and Outdoor Leaders who will integrate best practice training on managing and working from home and adjusting to new working practices, as well as offering general training and guidance on a range of associated topics that staff can tap into during the day. The walks offer staff an opportunity to enhance wellbeing during an invigorating and interesting days’ walk in the countryside, connecting and re-connecting with the environment and their colleagues. Please click here to book.
The Hub will be running an 8 week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy group programme for NHS and other care staff. This Mindfulness training is to support the development of awareness and pacing to learn to override automatic habits of overriding exhaustion and discomfort and, as a consequence, to learn how to be with and reduce the tension and anxiety that a life-long condition or long-covid can bring. As well as exploring how to integrate recommended physical exercises and activities into your routine. Please email: hubstheword@cntw.nhs.uk or call: 0191 223 2030 to find out more information. All sessions are scheduled to run from 2 - 4:30pm.
Yoga with Chloe: The Hub are extremely happy to be able to offer further Yoga Sessions with Chloe commencing this week from Tuesday 10 January 2023 for staff to access online:
Rest and Restore (Tuesdays at 8:15AM) | Beginners Yoga (Wednesdays at 6:30PM) | Improvers Yoga (Wednesdays 7:40PM) | Morning Flow (Thursdays at 7:30AM)
Drugs and Alcohol Support
Alcohol Support Service: The introduction of DrinkCoach will provide colleagues with access to a confidential online portal where they can undertake the DrinkCoach Alcohol Test, which creates a better understanding of current alcohol intake and the associated risks. In addition, staff who are identified as drinking at hazardous and harmful levels will be able to access up to six free 1:1 coaching sessions under the scheme.
DrinkCoach Two Minute Alcohol Test: The introduction of DrinkCoach enables all staff to access a completely confidential and simple-to-use platform, and makes use of the DrinkCoach Two Minute Test to evaluate and help you better understand your intake and the associated risks, as well as access further support where needed.
Those who are identified as being at risk through the two-minute test will be able to access an online session with a DrinkCoach, and will be assisted with accessing suitable support. Amongst the support available is free access to a confidential 1:1 online coaching programme with qualified alcohol treatment specialists.
Follow The Staff Wellbeing Hub on Social Media for the latest updates!
Wellbeing Hub North East and North Cumbria
@HubsTheWord