Support for health and care staff

Mental wellbeing information hub

Welcome to Kent and Medway's health and care staff wellbeing support hub.

Here, you will find a range of self-help materials we hope you find useful if you are experiencing, for example, anxiety, low mood and sleep disturbance, which are very common for people who have been working in health and care through Covid-19. Please take a look around.

We also have a team of clinicians who provide a free and confidential space for you to talk about how the pandemic has left you feeling. They can support you to think about the impact of Covid-19 on you and what might be of help right now.

Would you like to talk to one of our clinicians?

If the answer is yes, you can email the hub team at kmpt.wellbeingwebsite@nhs.net and they will send you a form to complete and return. A clinician will then contact you.

You will also see the little pop-up box on your screen. This is Limbic, our bespoke chat tool, which will ask you a series of questions.

It would be helpful if you can join the chat and answer the questions. This information will be passed on to one of our clinicians who will contact you, to help them better understand how you are feeling.

Limbic may also direct you to services, such as NHS talking therapies if your answers show it could be useful. You can be directly referred or ask for contact from the clinician team, which can help you with this - the choice is yours.

If the answer is no, please make use of the self-help materials here and if you change your mind at any point, please return to this page and request contact from the team, either via email or the Limbic chat tool.

You might also find the Limbic chat tool helpful in understanding how you are feeling; it could help you decide if a confidential conversation with one of our clinicians is right for you at the moment.

On-site mental wellbeing check-ins are available to you if you are working in Kent and Medway's acute hospitals and want to check-in on your mental health.

Clinical psychologists from Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) and high intensity therapists from the county's Talking Therapies (IAPT) services are available on site at:

Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, Margate
William Harvey Hospital, Ashford
Medway Maritime Hospital, Gillingham
Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford
Maidstone Hospital
Tunbridge Wells Hospital.

Anyone working on the hospital sites can contact their on-site clinicians.

The team is part of extra wellbeing support that is being put in place across Kent and Medway for all people working in health and care, as we continue to tackle Covid-19.

The support is in addition to that already provided for staff via their own trusts and organisations.

www.people.nhs.uk is a national resource set up to help you manage your own health and wellbeing while looking after others.

Alongside information about support available to you, the website includes short guides to help support you with skills and new ways to improve your experience of work.

The guides were developed with experts and cover topics, such as personal resilience, support for line managers and how to run your own 10-minute Pause Space.

Visit www.people.nhs.uk to find out more.

While it’s normal to struggle at the moment, looking out for signs in yourself and others of more significant distress can help you or a colleague access support.

NHS South East Leadership Academy has published tips, resources and signposting to help you find the right support for you and your teams, including advice for:

•   Understanding your needs
•   Working in high-risk areas
•   Working remotely and shielding
•   Staying well
•   Patients and carers
•   Bereavement and grief.

You can access these resources via the Academy’s Looking After Our People page.

NHS staff have been given free access to a number of wellbeing apps to support our mental health and wellbeing.

From mindfulness and meditation sessions to help reduce stress and build resilience with Headstart to support to help you to improve your quality of sleep via Sleepio, you just need to use your nhs.net email to download them.

You can find out more via NHS England’s Supporting Our NHS People wellbeing apps page.