Exploring the psychological wellbeing of healthcare professionals
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The WELLBEING Study: Exploring the psychological wellbeing of healthcare professionals (HCPs).
IRAS ID
282399
Contact name
Kathryn Bamforth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Plymouth
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Research Summary
The quality of care provided by the National Health Service depends on three things: patient safety, the effectiveness of treatments, and the experience of patients. Recent research tells us that patient experience is directly impacted by staff experience. Where there are happy and motivated healthcare staff, patients experience greater improvements in their health. However, there are growing numbers of healthcare staff are experiencing stress at work, leaving their jobs or returning to work after sickness despite not feeling well enough to do so. Research studies have suggested that we need to focus on improving the wellbeing of healthcare professionals, but there is very little information available about how to do this.This study aims to improve the wellbeing of healthcare professionals and work with staff and patients to identify and design relevant models of support.
Data will be collected through 4 separate activities. Activities 1-3 follow a method called experience-based co-design involving individual interviews for staff and patients and a co-design event and Wellbeing Model Development Group meetings for staff. There will be separate Patient Experience Group meetings which will feed into the staff events to ensure that the patients' perspective is considered throughout the study. Anyone who has been involved in Activity 2 or 3 will have the opportunity to take part in Activity 4 which is a review of their research experience.
Summary of Final Report
: Healthcare professionals (HCP) (n=13) and patients (n=6) took part in semi-structured interviews to explore what HCP psychological wellbeing at work meant to staff and for experiences of care. The barriers to HCP wellbeing at work were identified: "pressurised system" and a "misaligned NHS culture". The consequences of these were described under the theme titles: "staff struggle to survive" and "patients suffer". The enablers to wellbeing at work were identified as "teamwork" and "nurturing culture". The impact of the enablers were described under the themes, "staff thrive" and "patients benefit". Excerpts of the interview recordings were summarised into an anonymised "Catalyst film" which was shown a series of staff co-design groups (n=6) and a patient experience group (n=4). The participants identified the following priorities to support their wellbeing at work: 1) more opportunities to socialise, 2) better access to work, 3) better trained band and agency staff, 4) better relationship with the acute hospital, 5) better communication to help discharge planning.REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
21/WA/0214
Date of REC Opinion
14 Jul 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion