Midlands hospital trust drafts in 30 'mental health first aiders' amid coronavirus pressure
A hospital trust has brought in more than 30 "mental health first aiders" to help staff struggling with the psychological impacts of coronavirus, it has been revealed.
Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust has revealed that some staff have experienced "psychological trauma" due to working amid the pandemic.
Raffaela Goodby, a director on the trust's board, said risk assessments are being carried out on the potential long term effects on workers' healths.
She said long term affects could include stress, anxiety and depression.
More Covid-19 coverage:
Ms Goodby told the trust's monthly board meeting on Thursday: "That might manifest in increased absence [from work].
"If you have been away from work with - not necessarily where they [workers] state up front that it is psychological issues [why] they are away from work - but that [might] manifest as back pain, migraines or other issues.
"We know from previous board papers over the years, often people will go on with forms of absence and in the longer term it turns into stress, anxiety and depression because it was masking some work place issues."
In a bid to reduce psychological impacts on staff, she continued: "We have a set of mental health first aiders. They do half a day of training.
"We focused on the highest risk areas in week one and we are in the process of rolling that out more widely to the rest of the organisation.
"We have trained over thirty people so far and we are working with March On Stress [which provides counselling] who are an organisation that are assisting us to do that."
In a risk report presented to board members on Thursday, one of the chief concerns was the "increased psychological trauma due to Covid-19", documents said, which could lead "to staff harm or prolonged absence."
Another was a shortage of staff - particularly in leadership positions - due to all the outstanding holidays which have been accumulated through working overtime amid the pandemic.
