NHS staff wellbeing has already been weaponised

Salisbury’s concerns about the staff wellbeing quality outcomes framework are generalisable across the NHS.1Surveys have shown that 78% of junior doctors have felt unwell because of workplace stress, with 39% experiencing burnout. Pay, understaffing, and a lack of breaks and rest facilities are cited as factors.2 Recognition of the problem is improving, and many employers and deaneries now provide wellbeing programmes. While research into the effect of these programmes is sparse, anecdotal evidence is plentiful—and disheartening. Trainees are being told to reframe their unsustainable workloads as a matter of personal resilience rather than organisational dysfunction, and are being provided with mandatory wellbeing sessions which, ironically, run through lunchbreaks. Wellbeing has already been weaponised.Workplace wellbeing programmes are often ineffective. Employee uptake can be low, especially when time and work pressures are prominent, when the employees’ needs are misaligned with what is provided, or when the organisation’s motivations are distrusted.3 The relation…
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