Staff Wellbeing and Networks Support (SWANS) Study
Authors: Takavarasha Musiiwa Victor 
Published: January 2023

BACKGROUND

Anecdotal evidence from Lincolnshire National Health Service (NHS) Provider Trusts alluded to widely publicised reports of increased levels of stress and anxiety among health and social care staff, especially those identified as having an elevated risk of COVID-19 (ERiC). The clear need for support did however not translate to an increased demand for staff wellbeing and staff networks across Lincolnshire. Several studies have since alluded to adverse emotional and psychological impact of the pandemic on NHS, social and private sector front-line workers (Choudhury et al (2020), Al-Ghunaim et al (2021), Nyashanu et al (2022).

The SWANS Study was sponsored by the Sir Captain Tom Moore COVID relief funds via the NHS Lincolnshire Charities and was approved and vetted by the University of Lincoln Research Ethics Committee.

The Study was proposed and carried out in response to the increased burden on the health and wellbeing of the identified NHS Staff groups to establish barriers and enablers. The study was therefore aimed at equipping local NHS provider trusts with qualitative data that aids their response to the support needs of the identified clinically vulnerable staff groups during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

The Study explored the determinants of staff wellbeing and staff network access and uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic across the 3 Lincolnshire NHS Provider Trusts and recruited participants among healthcare staff, Nurses, Doctors, Therapists, Pharmacists, Leadership and Administration. A three-layer qualitative data collection method was adopted as follows.

1. Key informant interviews were held with Trust leadership and department leads including wellbeing services, equality, diversity and inclusion departments and staff network chairs.
2. Focus groups were carried out to explore the issues discussed in the 1st stage in order to seek the views of colleagues identified as clinically most vulnerable to Covid 19.
3. Finally, one-to-one interviews were held to capture more in-depth experiences of clinically most vulnerable colleagues including capturing some of the recommendations colleagues felt would benefit them if implemented by local NHS Trusts.

The SWANS study is a Lincolnshire-wide NHS qualitative research study to establish determinants of poor uptake of staff networks and wellbeing support during the COVID-19 pandemic among staff identified as having elevated risks of COVID-19 (ERiC) serious illness from the infection. ERiC groups of interest in this study include those for whom staff support networks were set up, including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (B.A.M.E.) communities and those self-identifying as living with long-term morbidities and/or disability.

Staff wellbeing and Staff networks generally belong to different organisational positions. Staff networks often fall within the realms of equality Diversity and Inclusion, while wellbeing is generally aligned to occupational healthcare departments in NHS organisations. The SWANS Study however brought these 2 dimensions of staff support together owing to the responses each made in promoting staff support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, both services were reporting similar access and uptake issues/challenges when COVID-19 hit.

To explore barriers and/or enablers of accessing the various staff support services, this study recruited participants as follows:

Five focus (5) groups comprising six to eight NHS worker participants were recruited to take part in the study. Furthermore, fifteen (15) key informants such as Executive, Health and Wellbeing as well as Equality Diversity and Inclusion Leads were recruited to take part in one-to-one semi-structured interviews.

Finally, twenty-five (25) individual interviews with COVID-19 ERiC members of staff were held. The interviews were carried out via an online platform called MS Teams. MS Teams online platform was used in facilitating all the interviews to observe national social distancing guidelines to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

RESULTS

A number of key findings and recommendations are included in the report and can be summarized as follows:

i. A lack of opportunity among colleagues to be released from busy work schedules to attend staff networks and/or access staff wellbeing services. The recommendation of setting up wellbeing-protected time allocation for ERiC staff was potentially able to address this challenge by giving staff as well as managers the validation to/allow access to the needed wellbeing offers.
ii. The strengthening of staff networks through executive sponsorship at the Trust Leadership level and allyship at the team level was seen as essential for the seamless facilitation of the study recommendations.
iii. An Action Research phase of the SWANS Study was also proposed in order to document the planning, implementation, and evaluation of any actioned recommendations. This would result in a 2nd report detailing the efficacy of any implemented actions and capturing any new learning for further policy-making, action and research recommendations.

CONCLUSIONS

The study yielded several key findings as detailed in the attached study report.Time to attend to the provided Staff Wellbeing offers was identified as a real challenge, especially among patient-facing roles.Line Managers who participated in the study felt that there was potential for staff members to access staff wellbeing offers if these were arranged in advance so that patient care was not compromised because of staff taking time out to seek support.

Trust Leadership or Board Sponsors and colleague Allies were identified as being of great value in strengthening Staff Networks and promoting staff access to wellbeing services. Beyond defining the above roles, emphasis needed to be on the promotion and sponsorship of allyship.