Staff Wellbeing and Resilience

Supporting the wellbeing of the Health and Social Care workforce

Working in health and social care can be physically demanding and emotionally challenging. Long shifts, high responsibility, exposure to distress, and ongoing service pressures can all impact wellbeing over time. Looking after your own health is essential to providing safe, compassionate care to others.

This bulletin highlights support and simple actions that can help maintain wellbeing and resilience at work.

Key areas of focus include

• Managing stress and emotional load
• Preventing burnout and compassion fatigue
• Maintaining healthy sleep, nutrition, and work life balance
• Knowing when and how to access support

Why these matter

Supporting staff wellbeing improves focus, decision making, and patient safety. It also helps reduce sickness absence, staff turnover, and long-term stress related illness.

Available support

• Confidential mental health and wellbeing services for health and social care staff
• Peer support networks and reflective practice groups
• Short online wellbeing sessions and self-help resources
• Crisis and helpline support when needed

Tip: Encourage teams to build in short wellbeing check ins during supervision or handovers and to share support resources openly. Normalising conversations about wellbeing helps reduce stigma and encourages early help seeking.