COVID-19 Staff Health and Wellbeing

The COVID-19 outbreak is creating unprecedented pressure on health care services across the globe. It is more important now than ever before that we provide our staff and students with a range of resources to help support their mental health and wellbeing. Find out the latest information on COVID-19 in your organisation.

This page provides a range of staff health and wellbeing resources from trusted sources that have been developed locally, nationally or internationally. This page is updated regularly to ensure that you can access timely, accurate and relevant resources all in one place.

The resources below will provide useful guidance and support in the following areas:

• building individual and team resilience
• managing stress
• developing coping and adjustment skills
• providing access to peer support networks and stress management tools.

We have divided the resources into the following categories:

• national resources
• mental health and wellbeing
• physical health and wellbeing

If you are a Mind & Body Champion and would be willing to share any positive news stories or tips for supporting your mental health and wellbeing and that of your team during the COVID-19 outbreak, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at mindandbody@slam.nhs.uk.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, shares his message of thanks to all King's Health Partners staff and students working through the pandemic, and the importance of mental health and wellbeing for our staff. 

National resources 

• NHS Employers guidance – recommends reviewing plans for staff wellbeing particularly for those with disabilities to enable staff to: 1. keep hydrated and have 24-hour access to food and take regular breaks; 2. know where to go to access local support, e.g. occupational health contacts, employee assistance provider information and psychological support provision. 3. have an effective safety induction into any new areas that staff are being re-deployed. 
• Public Health England’s Every Mind Matters campaign provides a range of support relating to mental health and wellbeing including anxiety, stress, sleep and low mood. Additional coronavirus related support has been developed for people staying at home and for managing anxiety.
• The Royal College of Psychiatrists has published information about COVID-19 and how adults and young people can manage their mental health during the pandemic.
• Our NHS People Guides and bitesize learning - develop new skills and discover new ways to improve your experience of work with short 10 to 20-minute guides developed by experts. Open to anyone in health and care.
• NHS Scotland has published a helpful guide on psychosocial responses to Covid-19 - looking after yourself, patients and staff including a range of infographics on stress, coping and resilience.
• NHS England and NHS Improvement has produced a range of Learning Disability and Autism resources for coronavirus including easy read guides, posters, e-learning and advice for providers and families.   

Mental health and wellbeing

   Mindfulness resources 

• King’s Health Partners Mindfulness for All (M4ALL) platform is a free mindfulness resource where you will find a series of guided mindfulness sessions under different categories, such as using mindfulness in daily life, exploring thoughts and feelings.

• Headspace - 1000+ hours of mindfulness and sleep content, currently free for all NHS staff. 

  Posters for staff and students

• Health Innovation Network (HIN) has produced materials to help you positively impact staff physical and mental health - Only Human: supporting wellbeing during and post COVID-19.
• World Health Organisation ‘coping with stress’ poster - this can be printed and put up in break/coffee rooms to provide useful guidance around coping with stress during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• Positive wellbeing and resilience poster – this poster was by King’s Health Partners and the Health Innovation Network (HIN) and provides staff and communities with six top tips for maintaining good mental wellbeing and resilience. This poster provides targeted messaging for staff working at home and for residents and communities. 
• South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust have designed a have designed a 'Managing Stress MOT' to help you identify key areas of your life that you need to pay attention to in order to stay well. 

Websites and webinars

• The Psychology Tools website contains a range of resources offering psychological support and advice to front-line medical staff, as well as to other clients, and to the public. Resources include information handouts, policy documents, research, interventions, websites, working remotely and articles.
• relatehub offers 30 minute chats with Relationships and Wellbeing Advisors, and access to online self-help resources. 
• NHS in Mind is a free platform containing 8 easy-to-access, short interventions to help NHS staff alleviate and combat high anxiety, panic and fatigue at this time. 
• Maudsley Learning has created a range of resources on mental health and COVID-19,  aiming to support you during the COVID-19 pandemic. Blog posts about looking after your wellbeing and podcasts are available, along with online resources provided by clinical experts. 
• Equally Well shares looking after your health during COVID-19: a guide for people with severe mental illness and Healthy Weight Management in People with severe mental illness: a review of the literature to identify effective weight management interventions. 
• Our NHS People website, as well as from NHS Employers and our other partners. These resources are invaluable and will hopefully be helpful in so many different ways.
• A free online resource exploring COVID-19’s impact on our wellbeing, mental health and coping strategies.
• South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Recovery College Webinar Rewinds shares a number of recordings – available to all – on themes such as managing anxiety during difficult times and moving towards self-compassion.
• COVID-19: Psychological Impact, Wellbeing and Mental Health is an online course offered by Maudsley Learning, in collaboration with The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. It explores the impact of the pandemic on wellbeing and mental health at an individual, group and societal level.
• The Keeping Well in South East London website.

Mental health charity advice 

• The charity, MIND has produced helpful UK guidance including plans for staying at home, taking care of your mental health and wellbeing and a checklist: are you ready to stay at home. 
• Rethink Mental Illness has set up an online hub to provide practical support and information that is useful for people living with, or supporting people with mental illness. 
• Support the workers – is a collaborative resource providing a series of evidence-based briefing notes on issues that are relevant during the COVID-19 response including extreme stressors, resilience, motivation, anxiety and fear, moral injury, PTSD and leadership.

Physical health and wellbeing

Websites and webinars

• Integrating Mental and Physical healthcare: Research, Training and Services (IMPARTS) has a range of Covid-19 self-help resources tailored to patients living with medical conditions including cardiology, liver, rheumatology and renal.
• Future Learn has developed a COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus three-week course on ‘what is COVID-19 and how might the outbreak affect you? Find out more about coronavirus and explore its worldwide implications’ *This course is provided for personal use only and not for any commercial, professional medical or business purpose.
• COVID-19: Supporting your recovery. Recovery from COVID-19 will take time. The length of time needed will vary from person to person and it is important not to compare yourself to others. A new resource developed by a group of multi-disciplinary health professionals at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals provides patients and their families with advice on recovering from COVID-19.
• South East London Clinical Commissioning Group has put together a list of clinical support to be used during COVID-19. The resource includes locally relevant and curated clinical support for Primary Care teams during COVID-19 pandemic. It covers both COVID care and support in managing unwell patients who would normally be managed in secondary care.
• Members of NHS Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network (CHAIN) have provided useful online resources for Covid-19 including a living map of the evidence, best practice guidance from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and Communities Together platform to help all UK communities respond to COVID-19.

• Moving Medicine is the ultimate resource to help healthcare professionals integrate physical activity conversations into routine clinical care.