Doctors’ health and wellbeing: at the heart of the NHS’s mission or still a secondary consideration?

Abstract

It is well-recognized that staff health and wellbeing has a considerable influence on performance and productivity in any organization. The NHS is no different. Dr Steven Boorman’s NHS health and well-being review made a powerful case for change in how staff health and wellbeing was understood, how it should be operationalized in the NHS, and how senior management must lead in developing new cultures that have health and wellbeing at their core. In particular, Dr Boorman demonstrated how staff health and wellbeing impacts on patient care. Ten years later, NHS staff remain more likely to incur a work-related illness or injury than staff in other sectors and NHS staff sickness absence is double the national average. In addition, doctors, particularly younger doctors, frequently feel the need to attend work despite ill health, and are taking breaks in training to avoid burnout. The views of doctors on the availability and access to occupational health services, as well as the support of their employer for their health and wellbeing, can provide a timely insight into the effectiveness of measures since the Boorman review to bring doctors’ health and wellbeing to a central place in today’s NHS. There have also been a series of initiatives announced in the nations of the UK to provide occupational health services to doctors in recent years. The effectiveness and implementation of these initiatives are important in understanding what progress has been made in supporting doctors’ health and wellbeing. In order to gain such insights, we asked a series of questions to a panel of doctors through the regular online BMA Quarterly Survey. The survey results demonstrate that access to support for their health and wellbeing is inconsistent and sometimes non-existent. This article discusses these results and provides recommendations for the future.

Keywords:

• Health and wellbeing
• burnout
• mental health
• occupational health
• support services

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 546 doctors responded to the question.

2 816 doctors responded to the question.

3 812 doctors responded to the question.