21 October 2020
The most senior nurses in the UK this week spoke out to acknowledge the huge psychological stress placed on the profession by COVID-19 and assured staff they will face “no stigma” for asking for help, the Nursing Times reports.
Speaking at a virtual nursing conference, Ruth May, Professor Jean White, and Professor Charlotte McArdle, chief nursing officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively, cited the mental health and wellbeing of nurses as a key concern and priority going into the second wave of the coronavirus crisis.
Ms May urged nurses to remember to look themselves as well as their patients. “We as nurses and midwives have put a lot into phase one: caring for our patients, working extraordinary hours in enormously different ways and I’m grateful for everybody doing that,” she said.
“But in order for us to be well and to be able to lead our professions and lead our teams into phase two, we need to look after our mental health and our physical health.”
She added: “So please, there is no stigma if you need to reach out for support for your mental health. There is absolutely no stigma in doing so, we need to make sure we are all well mentally and physically.”
The Nursing Times reports that NHS England has pledged £15m ($AU27.5 million) for staff mental health care in the second wave, promising access to “rapid assessment and treatment”.
Ms May indicated that staff mental health support would be led by nurses for nurses. “We know that nurses like to be able to talk to nurses about their own health, they don’t have to then go through ‘so what does it really mean to be a nurse and the emotional toll of that’,” she said.
Professor McArdle said a lot was being done in Northern Ireland to protect nurse mental health and more was in the pipeline.
She said the impact of the first wave on staff had become clear by the reduction in people volunteering to work in COVID-19 environments.
Professor McArdle said she had asked the trauma network in Northern Ireland to put together a new framework “that will support those who are suffering and who continue to suffer”.
Responding to Ms May’s comments, she agreed that there was “absolutely no stigma attached to reaching out for help”.
However, she recognised that stigma still existed and there remained people who felt unable to ask for support, noting the particular challenges for nurses in senior positions.
“In Northern Ireland we have higher instances of mental health generally in the population coming out of the Troubles; one in five people in Northern Ireland experience mental health problems,” Professor McArdle said.
“So, there is a stigma attached to it and for those particularly I think in senior posts where it’s really difficult to not be as resilient as everybody thinks you should be and to not be the last man standing, so to speak.
“We do need to create mechanisms for people to confidentially be able to find support and that’s one of the things that I am absolutely committed to doing for this new surge.”
Nursing Times has launched the COVID-19: Are You OK? campaign to raise awareness of the mental health needs of nurses during and after the pandemic and is currently asking organisations to sign a pledge backing the principles.