Society campaign on NHS resilience and wellbeing hubs wins award

A BPS campaign to secure extra funding for NHS resilience and wellbeing hubs has won the Chartered Institute for Public Relations Excellence Award for the best not-for-profit campaign. The hubs were set up during the Covid-19 pandemic to offer support to NHS and social care staff and the campaign, which launched in early 2023, helped to secure an extra £2.3 million in funding.

The campaign was praised for its research, data gathering and messaging. The BPS team who worked on the campaign, led by BPS Senior Campaigns Advisor Kate Brudenell, engaged with government officials, encouraged the public to write to their MPs and gathered data from the hubs – publishing a report on the important lessons learned from them.

Clinical Psychologist Dr Joanne Jordan has worked as Clinical Lead of the Humber and North Yorkshire Resilience Hub since its inception and encouraged the BPS to campaign to help the hubs secure extra funding. Jordan and her team are currently in the process of closing their hub – working with current patients and signposting those on their waiting list to other services.

Speaking of the closure of many of the UK's hubs, Jordan said her main concern was with patient safety. 'The reality is that a lot of these staff who are seeking help are scared to seek help in their organisation, and they are really struggling. Sadly the hubs aren't seen as an investment – they're seen as an expense, but the implications further down the line in terms of patient safety and sickness absence is proven.'

Jordan had worked for more than 20 years as a psychologist in physical health in neurology, pain services and gastropsychology and was excited to bring her knowledge to entirely new, psychology-led, service. 'Alongside operational manager Holly Walker we had the opportunity to create something completely different. My remit and value base as a psychologist is to see someone as an individual, and then construct a treatment support package around that. To be able to design a service that had core psychology right at the centre of it was really exciting, also having the opportunity to work alongside colleagues that were doing exactly the same job as Clinical Leads in other resilience hubs was wonderful.'

The Humber and North Yorkshire hub, and others, drew on learning from services set up in the wake of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack. They set up an electronic safety system to organise referrals and appointments, and collect data, and moved away from a traditional stepped-care model with people being seen by an experienced practitioner initially to assess their needs with all treatment being needs-led and timely to reduce time off work.

'That meant people didn't wait endlessly for treatments, they didn't have to go to the GP, then read a leaflet, then wait for a referral – people got a thorough psychological assessment and we spoke to them about the things they needed to work on and helped them to get that support and do that efficiently. Our whole model has been based on efficiency – we know with efficiency we keep our staff at work, if they're treated kindly, compassionately, and supportively, and they get to the right place at the right time, then they're more likely to stay at work and feel validated. It was so exciting and creative to create the service. We always joke that it was a little bit like riding a bicycle while simultaneously trying to build it!'

Jordan said she was very proud to have been part of the hubs. 'We have a huge amount of evidence now to show that we have supported lots of people psychologically that wouldn't have got support traditionally, because lots of internal services only focus on work-related problems but we know that people have an interface between work and home.

'We've also got a huge subsection of our population who are traumatised and there's nowhere for them to get help and we see people who are coping with long covid and other health problems where people would otherwise struggle to access help.'

Jordan and other hub leads Dr Arabella Kurtz and psychiatrist Dr Richard Duggins reached out to the BPS when they became aware that many hubs were set for closure. 'The staff at the BPS have just been absolutely outstanding in terms of their respect and understanding. They have been relentless, helpful and validating – because I think for some of us even to this day we can't quite understand why there isn't an acknowledgement at a higher level of how successful the hubs have been. Of course the success has been varied – some of the hubs didn't have the opportunity to get up and running – but those hubs that have been around for a long period of time have proven their utility.'

Jordan said she felt there had been a deep-rooted respect within the BPS of psychology-led services. 'If you put psychologists in leadership roles you will get well-run, compassionate services, which will be successful because they've got people at the core of them. We are proof that you can be person-centred and highly efficient and cost-effective and create lean services.'

Looking to the future, Jordan said she hoped the health service would take the important lessons learned from the hubs. 'The difficulty now is moving away from the frustration and the moral injury that we now feel, because essentially, for most of us, the hubs have closed down. Some of them are just hanging on. We need to say, very constructively, "look, let's stop, let's breathe, let's look at the learning, and let's look at how we can apply that learning in order to get some positive outcomes". We need to get the message out that people are, understandably, reticent to seek support internally, and we can't change the culture of those organisations overnight.

'There is tremendous expertise in occupational health and human resources and we need to collaboratively pull together, alongside psychological professionals to positively change cultures and misconceptions around reaching out for help. Sadly we can't do this overnight but collaboration, system working and utilising economies of scale will best serve our workforces well-being. The resilience hubs plugged that gap to say to people – come here where it's safe and we will help to support you back into your organisation – and we did that with an arm around the shoulder.'

• Read the BPS report Learning from NHS Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hubs
• See much more on the hub campaign