Welcome to the next issue of our South East Leadership Dispatch. 
Today marks the start of the Mental Health Awareness Week so in this edition of our Dispatch we will focus on mental health and wellbeing.

This has been a year unlike anything we’ve seen before and many of us may have been forced to make some major lifestyle changes incredibly quickly. The restrictions placed on social contact have been more difficult for some of us to deal with than for others and cannot be underestimated, and the same is likely to be true as the measures are eased over the coming months.  Easing of lockdown will be a happy, even joyful, experience for many but it can also bring a variety of stresses and worries for others. The feelings provoked by further change may seem difficult to manage, but there are a number of simple and effective things we can all do to maintain and improve our mental health and wellbeing. Have a look at the South East Looking After People site as well as Our NHS People site to access a wealth of resources and advice to support your mental health and wellbeing.

And here I’d like to share with you some of my favourite practical tips that can help support your mental health:

Talk to someone – share your worries with a trusted friend, family member or colleague. Just opening up will help but you may also get some useful advice, reassurance or a different perspective too.

Give yourself some space – if you start to feel that you’re getting stressed, take a step back. Give yourself some space; take some time every day doing something you enjoy and not thinking about anything else. If this feels impossible, try finding as little as 15 minutes in a day that you can reserve for yourself. 

Focus on things you can control – there will be issues which are out of our hands, but it can help to identify and list the things you can control and focus on those. 

Learn to relax physically – believe it or not, being able to relax your body is a skill. We have some resources that can help you ‘take a breath‘.

Know your limits – be realistic in what you can achieve and celebrate success at every opportunity.  Remember, whether you are working remotely or not, it is easy to work extra hours because you want to get a task finished or want to do the best job possible. It is vital to maintain a work-life balance. Taking regular breaks will help you be more productive at work. It is amazing how a walk in the fresh air at lunchtime can really help you feel refreshed for the afternoon ahead.  And make sure you take your annual leave regularly.

Finally please ‘ask for help‘ – if you feel you need support, we have a range of offers which you can access.

And I look forward to supporting you to continue our collective work in 2021 – delivering excellent patient care and enabling all our workforce to flourish and grow.

Jeanette Williams
Head of Staff Experience South East Region

Regional Offers

Mental Health Week 10 – 16 May 2021

Thriving, Hiving or Surviving post Covid, 12th May, 12:30 – 13:15

This session offers the opportunity to consider some of the demands that Covid-19 has placed upon people and explore how individuals and managers can recognise their own levels of functionality, what individuals can do to protect and enhance their own psychological wellbeing and what managers and leaders can do to enhance the psychological safety of their teams.

Leadership Espresso: Looking after yourself and your mental health, 13th May, 10:00 – 11:30

This short espresso will be an opportunity to learn more about mental health and wellbeing, understand stigma of mental health and explore the impact of remote working on your wellbeing and energy sources. You will have the opportunity to share and learn with others, in small breakout groups, tactics and tips to increase your mental energy and help with recovery whilst working remotely.

Leadership Espresso: Supporting Your People When Noticing Burnout, 9th June, 9:30 – 11:00

This 90-minute espresso is for staff who are concerned that their teams are working under extreme pressure and who want to know how to better understand their people in such circumstances and what they can do to support them effectively.

Leadership Espresso: Supporting Your People When Noticing Burnout, 14th June, 9:30 – 11:00

This 90-minute espresso is for staff who are concerned that their teams are working under extreme pressure and who want to know how to better understand their people in such circumstances and what they can do to support them effectively.

Leadership Espresso: Conversations to Build Resilience, 16th June, 9:30 – 11:00

This 90-minute leadership espresso is for anyone who wants to know how to manage sensitive conversations to support their teams and colleagues when working under pressure.

More Leadership Espressos: Supporting Our Leaders

The below sessions have been designed as standalone but can also be attended as a series.

Leadership Espresso: Supporting Your People to Return to Work, 28th May, 9:30 – 11:00

This session is for team managers and leaders who want to support their staff returning to work. It will explore factors that influence an individual’s ability to return to work, help identify aspects of the job that can be adjusted and how to prepare and support both the individual and the team during the return to work process.

Leadership Espresso – Sustaining a Good Team Culture, 14th June, 13:00 – 14:30

This session will focus on exploring how managers can continue to cultivate a good team culture. It has been developed to provide practical tips and tools for helping teams to process and explore their experiences over recent months in order to move forward positively together, including how to design and run a processing or time-out session with your team.

Leadership Espresso: Conversations to Build Resilience, 16th June, 9:30 – 11:00

This 90-minute leadership espresso is for anyone who wants to know how to manage sensitive conversations to support their teams and colleagues when working under pressure.

1:1 Support for Leaders

Safe Space Conversation Sessions for Senior Clinical Leaders

This offer will provide senior clinical leaders time out to talk, to gain support, learning and development through a crucial period of heightened demand on individuals and the healthcare services around them. Primarily aimed at executive and deputy Medical and Nursing Directors, Heads of Midwifery and AHPs (and their deputies), Senior Clinical Leaders of teams or services, and clinical divisional directors or equivalent.

Bitesize Coaching – book your 45-minute session now.

An opportunity for those working on the frontline and/or responsible for teams who are currently working under pressure to work with an experienced coach. This one-off session can help you process experiences, develop coping skills or explore strategies to navigate challenging circumstances.

National and Partner Offers

#ProjectM

Shaped by on-going feedback and conversations had with managers throughout the NHS – #ProjectM is a suite of resources, tools and guides to help our NHS managers lead through COVID-19 and beyond. A community of practice will provide a safe, collaborative space for colleagues to get peer-to-peer support, alongside our award-winning health and wellbeing offers.

#ProjectM Mentorship

In the spirit of support and collaboration #ProjectM mentorship has launched. This is mentorship but not as you know it! This means getting involved is quick and easy and doesn’t require registration. #ProjectM mentorship is based on harnessing social media (starting with Twitter) to enable the #ProjectM community to self-organise. This means you can share your skills and experience by letting the #ProjectM community know you are happy to be a mentor, or you would like to be mentored by adding a Twibbon to your Twitter profile picture.

Executive Suite

The King’s Fund Masterclass: The Covid memory – learning and creating new behavioural patterns, 21 May 10am – 12pm.

As we emerge from the pandemic and return to some version of normal, leaders across the health system are facing the challenge of thinking and doing differently in order to restart business as usual without recreating the past. Balancing competing operational pressures with the need to process the experience and capture the lessons of the last year is a huge leadership challenge, and one we cannot afford to get wrong. In this Masterclass we will explore what you have learned over the course of the pandemic, and how the gains and best of what has been achieved can be understood, protected and not lost in what comes next.

Provider Collaboratives Webinar: New Ways of Working with Sir David Dalton – 26 May 09:30 – 12:00 – for CEOs and AOs only

The recent updated Policy Paper issued by the Department of Health & Social Care (11th February 2021) was titled: “Integration and innovation:  working together to improve health and social care for all”.

Come and explore what this might mean with Sir David Dalton, a serving NHS Chief Executive for 25 years.  Sir David has led the development of new Local Care Organisations, comprising integrated care services (hospital, community, primary and social care) across four localities, with the triple aim of improved population health outcomes, better user experience and reduced costs.

Action for Change Webinar: The Politics of Leading Integration – 27 May 16:15 – 17:00

Following expert seminars with Jon Rouse, Andy Burnham, and Raj Jain with Paul Dennett, we will welcome three Provider Trust Chief Executives, to discuss their experience of developing a provider collaborative:

• Cara Charles-Banks, CEO of Royal United Hospitals Bath,
• Stacey Hunter, CEO of Salisbury Foundation Trust and
• Kevin McNamara, CEO of Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Other offers

NHS Confed Conference, 15 – 17 June (9am-5pm)

The event will be completely online and will feature a programme of sessions spanning the three days, featuring contributions from NHS England and NHS Improvement and a range of other national and international voices.

Contact

For Regional Offers: [email protected]

For National and Partner Offers – Please follow the link in the offer you are interested in and contact organisers directly