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Part of the Team
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Wellbeing
Wellbeing is at the centre of everything we do in the UHS Children’s Emergency Department we have a very active wellbeing initiative.
Primarily we aim to get the basics right, working on things within our control. The rota is organised and flexible, we encourage everybody to take their breaks when on shift and book in their annual leave as soon as possible. We encourage exception reporting to highlight any issues. We run daily teaching sessions for all levels of the team and weekly lunchtime sessions covering important topics on a rotational basis. We focus on individual wellbeing in our daily handovers and finish these with the daily action for happiness calendar.
Then we go beyond this with a wide range of activities focused on wellbeing and getting the best our of ourselves and the team. We currently have a wellbeing fellow within the department who spends 30% of their time focused on wellbeing. Wellbeing is included in the lunchtime teaching sessions and has the same status as the M&M meeting or safeguarding on the 1st Thursday of every month. These sessions focus on practical tools and the science behind wellbeing to convert even the most sceptical of the team with the evidence base behind some suggestions. Some of these activities are included in this section of the website. These sessions are open to all in the region to attend.
Through all of this we have the support of the clinical psychologist and run regular psychological supervision sessions for the medical, nursing and allied professional teams. These provide a confidential safe space in which worries, and stressors can be discussed and addressed. The motivation behind this is that we recognise within Emergency Medicine there is exposure to multiple minor trauma events. While we also have strong structures in place if a significant event happens with our TRiM team and structured debrief tools developed in house it is sometimes not these ‘big’ things which lead to burnout or overwhelm. Therefore, in the wellbeing check in’s and psychological supervision we provide peer spaces to address these minor trauma’s.
One of the most important determiners of wellbeing is a sense of connection. We run regular social events which occur both in the evening’s focusing on nights out and dinners, as well as encouraging another aspect of wellbeing by having team ‘Park Run’ events followed by picnic breakfasts. We have a book swap corner and have themed events such as the CED advent calendar which run at appropriate times of the year.
Primarily we aim to get the basics right, working on things within our control. The rota is organised and flexible, we encourage everybody to take their breaks when on shift and book in their annual leave as soon as possible. We encourage exception reporting to highlight any issues. We run daily teaching sessions for all levels of the team and weekly lunchtime sessions covering important topics on a rotational basis. We focus on individual wellbeing in our daily handovers and finish these with the daily action for happiness calendar.
Then we go beyond this with a wide range of activities focused on wellbeing and getting the best our of ourselves and the team. We currently have a wellbeing fellow within the department who spends 30% of their time focused on wellbeing. Wellbeing is included in the lunchtime teaching sessions and has the same status as the M&M meeting or safeguarding on the 1st Thursday of every month. These sessions focus on practical tools and the science behind wellbeing to convert even the most sceptical of the team with the evidence base behind some suggestions. Some of these activities are included in this section of the website. These sessions are open to all in the region to attend.
Through all of this we have the support of the clinical psychologist and run regular psychological supervision sessions for the medical, nursing and allied professional teams. These provide a confidential safe space in which worries, and stressors can be discussed and addressed. The motivation behind this is that we recognise within Emergency Medicine there is exposure to multiple minor trauma events. While we also have strong structures in place if a significant event happens with our TRiM team and structured debrief tools developed in house it is sometimes not these ‘big’ things which lead to burnout or overwhelm. Therefore, in the wellbeing check in’s and psychological supervision we provide peer spaces to address these minor trauma’s.
One of the most important determiners of wellbeing is a sense of connection. We run regular social events which occur both in the evening’s focusing on nights out and dinners, as well as encouraging another aspect of wellbeing by having team ‘Park Run’ events followed by picnic breakfasts. We have a book swap corner and have themed events such as the CED advent calendar which run at appropriate times of the year.