Key principles to improving mental health among doctors and medical students from the report:
Building a supportive culture
– Valuing the NHS workforce: promoting shared values, fostering a sense of fulfilment and enjoyment at work, involving staff in mental health policy design and implementation, offering adjustments (time off, reduced hours)
– Preventing the cause of ill-health: reducing risks and pressures, fostering a no-blame environment
– Raising mental health awareness: addressing the stigma around accessing support services, normalising and encouraging help-seeking behaviour, offering education/training opportunities to improve awareness, creating mental health champions
– Offering support: recognising and providing support for potentially stressful events/situations (traumatic incidents, career transitions), training supervisors/educators to help signpost to services
Enhancing access to support
– Improving awareness of services: promoting services regularly, encouraging the use of services, providing clear guidance on support procedures
– Meeting service user needs: providing access to or signposting to mental health support services, addiction support services and occupational health support, ensuring any services offered provide timely, confidential and flexible support
– Providing spaces to rest: ensuring staff have access to areas where they can have refreshments, speak with colleagues, reflect on experiences
Encouraging self-care and peer support
– Self-care: valuing and maintaining one’s mental health, acknowledging support available to you for support
– Peer support: recognising ill-health in colleagues and offering support, understanding the difficulties colleagues face and being alert to signs of mental health problems, fostering a collegiate and inclusive environment
