TWBC has worked alongside a national hospital care provider for over 6 years and supported them in a variety of impactful ways. These are 3 main ways we actively made a positive difference to the wellbeing of staff and outcomes for patients.
The staff work in often isolated hospitals supporting people with complex needs, learning disabilities and young people with mental health needs. The staff experience stress, exhaustion and psychological impacts of supporting people who have complex needs. Our psychologists and specialist facilitators spent time (virtually and face-to-face) coaching, counselling, mediating and providing restorative headspace for staff and leaders when they needed it most. These interventions would be provided at short notice, often out of hours and in the most difficult of situations. They helped staff move through difficult emotions and continue to provide excellent care.
The second example is a 24-month project to enhance the recruitment selection, onboarding and induction of new starters. We worked with a focus group of volunteers, including patients, and we redesigned the whole process. The highlight was a full programme of learning for every manager and recruiter in the business in strengths-based recruitment and EDI. We trained staff from Scotland to Devon and discovered that not only were selection practices improving, but the culture was shifting around equity, diversity and inclusion as employees were exploring bias, privilege and Appreciative Inquiry.
The final example focuses on retention. We worked with over 12 hospital sites, all the staff and residents on a 9-month programme called ‘Flourishing Services’. Our team provided leadership development; taught coaching and feedback skills; supported empowerment and saw a huge impact on the wellbeing and success of each hospital we worked with. We used positive psychology (such as Appreciative Inquiry, coaching skills and emotional intelligence) which the teams still use as an approach independently because of our interventions.
