"I've worked in medicine since 1989 and the Theatres Wellbeing Project is the most rewarding thing I have done"
- A wellbeing initiative which embeds psychological wellbeing into the working day of theatre staff has been recognised at the Association of Anaesthetists awards.
- Theatre staff at The Royal London Hospital take half an hour at the start of a shift to join in with psychological support sessions, and the project has been a huge success.
- The concept could be rolled out across the trust to help staff suffering from PTSD, stress, anxiety and depression as a result of pandemic pressures.
A popular wellbeing initiative pioneered by a Royal London consultant has won a prize at the national anaesthetic awards (AAGBI).
The Theatre Wellbeing Project encourages all theatre staff to take time at the start of a shift to join in with meditation and mindfulness, self compassion and yoga at the start of the day.
Dr Tony Allnatt delivers the programme, along with anaesthetists, scrub staff and a clinical psychologist.
He now hopes that the trust will roll out similar initiatives to help staff deal with the toll on their mental health of the pandemic.
Dr Allnatt was personally affected by the London 7/7 attacks, when he was the anaesthetic coordinator in theatres.
He did not recognise that he needed help for several years and even when he did the pathways were unclear.
It was only when he became unable to work that he was diagnosed with a major depressive illness as a result of PTSD. It took eight years of treatment before he was discharged from follow up.
Since then he has been advocating accessible psychological support initiatives for all staff, something which has come to the forefront during the past year. Many nurses, doctors and health care support workers have been affected by post-traumatic syndromes following what they have seen at work during the pandemic.
The hope is that by providing early, accessible support and advertising pathways, others won't have to go through the same struggle.
Dr Allnatt said: “The Theatre Wellbeing Project is a grassroots initiative which began in 2018 after theatre staff expressed their distress following the Westminster, London Bridge and Finsbury Park attacks the previous year.
“We decided to organise twice yearly wellbeing half-days for all theatre staff, which included sessions on psychoeducation, physical approaches to wellbeing, and opportunities for staff to talk about their own experiences.
“During the pandemic, as distress levels became really high, we decided to start daily support sessions, 30 minutes every weekday morning at the beginning of a shift.
"These evolved into self compassion sessions with concurrent self care yoga for those who prefer a slightly more physical way to connect with themselves and each other.
“The sessions prepare the staff for the physical and mental rigours of their jobs.
"We frequently spend many hours in PPE, trying to save the lives of victims of violent crime and road traffic accidents, as well as all the other emergency and urgent operations that continue regardless of the pandemic.
“When people started coming back from redeployment after the first wave, we ran a psychological support session called staff stories.
“It was really powerful for people to share their experiences with colleagues they wouldn’t normally speak with, using this model of peer support.”
The poster about the Theatre Wellbeing Project response during the pandemic was recently presented by Dr Costas Papoutsos, one of our locum consultant anaesthetists and it won second prize in the survey category at the Winter Scientific Meeting of the AAGBI, the largest meeting of its kind in the UK.
The paper noted: “Staff felt cared for and included, to a greater extent than they did before the pandemic. There was a feeling of greater cohesion and people felt empowered to begin conversations about harassment and bullying.
"It was noticeable within two or three days from the sessions starting that something had changed. Theatre staff felt more engaged and focused.”
Dr Allnatt said: “I arrived in Whitechapel as a medical student in 1989 and have been a consultant here since 2008 - and this is by far the most rewarding thing I have done.
“I would like to see this type of initiative roll out across the trust more widely, hopefully people can replicate the work we are doing in their own area to improve staff wellbeing.
"It is different to the majority of initiatives already running because the sessions are held during the working day, so staff are actually paid to attend."
"In this way we reach staff members who cannot access support in their own time, or do not realise they could benefit; until I had been directly affected, I was definitely in that latter group.
“There is a pervasive culture among NHS staff of ‘just getting on with it’ - not stopping to allow your body and mind time to catch up with the physical and mental challenges experienced. This has to change to provide healthy, genuinely sustainable working conditions for all, and will ultimately lead to the institutional resilience which we need to ensure staff thrive here."