NHS and Social Services: Coronavirus

(asked on 24th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle workforce burnout across the NHS and social care during the Covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 8th December 2020

The Government is committed to supporting the National Health Service and social care workforce. The NHS People Plan, published in July, is focused on the wellbeing of the NHS workforce and on strengthening resilience during COVID-19. We have invested in mental health support with £15 million recently going into the roll out of mental health hubs that will provide proactive outreach to overcome barriers to seeking help for frontline staff.

In September we published a winter plan for adult social care setting out the wellbeing support available to support the adult social care workforce through the winter. We have worked alongside the NHS and other organisations to develop a package of emotional, psychological and practical resources for the workforce and wherever possible the same offer is in place for all social care staff as is for their colleagues in the NHS. We have funded extensions of the Samaritans staff support line and the Hospice UK bereavement and trauma line to all social care staff as well as bespoke support for Registered Managers. We will continue to work with local authorities to improve access to occupational health provision and other wellbeing support for care workers, in line with our commitments in the winter plan.

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