How the mental health conversation is changing in the ambulance service

There is real change in awareness and approach to mental health among colleagues across ambulance services. We are collectively seeing a better understanding and more open conversation around what kind of support is truly helpful for colleague wellbeing beyond simply being in survival mode at work.

The relationship between work and wellbeing is undergoing lots of debate and encouraging action at a national level amongst ambulance trusts (my field) and beyond.

We are providing an increasing amount of psychoeducation resources, apps, training, awareness campaigns and access to support. These measures are straightforward and doable actions working to visibly address rising mental health absence and reported stressors at work.

The issue is that they only partly provide the solution required and they often put emphasis on the individual employee to try and fix how they are feeling as a result of workplace stressors. It doesn’t address the ongoing origins of stress and burnout. Issues which tend to come down to stretched services lacking capacity, job design and eroded interpersonal relations between leaders and colleagues alike.

Leading burnout researcher, Christina Maslach identifies six main causes of burnout: unsustainable workloads, perceived lack of control, insufficient rewards for effort, lack of a supportive community, lack of fairness, and mismatched values and skills. All of which are workplace factors.

The next stage in workplace mental wellbeing must therefore have stronger emphasis on meeting these core human needs through community, job design and healthy culture. It is time to see mental health as a collective workplace responsibility and not just an individual one.

We need to see a consistency amongst all team leaders with the capacity and attitude to build understanding and supportive relationships within their teams, we need to ensure all colleagues feel they are working in positive environments, making positive progress for the public and themselves. We need a core understanding and delivered reality of what sustainable workload looks like to prevent burnout, a supportive community to find belonging and the flexibility and autonomy to feel respected and have voices heard.

Cultivating such a mentally healthy workforce includes reflecting on and actioning policies and process that create a sense of safety, autonomy and belonging within one’s work for all within the organisation.

Safety includes physical and psychological safety, balance and sustainability for the future alongside financial stability. Autonomy involves time and resources to do one’s role; whilst belonging looks at the ability to feel part of a community, to be able to show up authentically to work, make meaningful connections and make a difference whilst be supported in doing so.

At North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), we are making progressive steps in this direction and appreciate it is work in progress. Everyone wants simple solutions to complex problems and it’s not always that easy.

We have worked hard to launch and create a clear internal brand ‘NEAS Mental Maintenance’ with a clear message. We are aiming to change the way colleagues across the organisation think about mental health as something to be maintained regularly, rather than only attending in a crisis.

We want to inspire colleagues to take ownership of their mental health through education, clear access to support and improved informal peer support. We are striving for consistent levels of psychology safety and a consistent vocabulary around workplace mental wellbeing.

The initial launch and consistent messaging are to ensure each colleagues take ownership over their wellbeing, but we are also moving beyond awareness raising and individual focused intervention to a data led systematic approach to staff mental wellbeing to ensure needs are met across the organisation.

And we are working on support more widely – related to job design/capacity looking at encouraging use of annual leave, providing improved flexible working and working closer with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) to release capacity and support in system, to enable more effective working.

We see workplace mental wellbeing as a subject that is vibrant, aspirational, empowering and personalised. Our ambition with NEAS Mental Maintenance is to therefore set out a new future where:

• Individuals (at every level) need to be equipped with the personal skills, tools and resources to be able to look after themselves effectively
• Managers need to be confident in supporting their teams’ mental health
• Leaders need to create a stigma-free culture which creates the conditions for staff to thrive.

Our hope is that this will lead to greater collaboration and continued progress in supporting colleague wellbeing. And as a service we keep doing the incredible work we do everyday to support the North East public.

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