Working in healthcare can be stressful at the best of times, but the pandemic tested our local NHS and its staff to their limit.
We’re recruiting thousands more doctors, nurses, and healthcare support workers. But it’s also important to look after the staff we have.
That’s why the work of talking wellness, Kent and Medway’s staff mental health and wellbeing service, is so important. I’m delighted to be backing them for The Excellence in Mental Health Care Award at the NHS Parliamentary Awards.
In January this year, talking wellness partnered with the charity Project Wingman to turn one of their converted double decker buses into a mobile mental health support unit for Kent’s NHS and social care staff - successfully bidding for £50,000 of NHS England funding
The bus is currently undertaking a 14-week tour of Kent’s hospitals, and last week welcomed its 1,000th visitor on board. It was a pleasure to visit the bus at St Martin’s Hospital in Canterbury and speak to with members of the team, as well as to NHS staff using the service.
Improving wellbeing for healthcare workers was something I worked on as Care Minister. Our NHS and care staff work so hard to look after us, we need to make sure they’re cared for too.
