What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme?

Many NHS staff experience stress, anxiety and depression, which can negatively impact on wellbeing and functioning. COVID-19 has increased levels of stress, anxiety, depression and burn out.

Be-Mindful is an online mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) www.bemindfulonline.co.uk (NHS recommended and meets NHS digital standards) (NICE, 2019). Be-Mindful can reduce stress, anxiety, pain levels, fatigue, and rumination, and improve sleep (Krusche et al. 2012; Krusche et al. 2013; Querstret et al. 2017; Querstret et al. 2018).

Using local charity funding NHFT collaborated with clinicians and WellMind Ltd. and offered Be Mindful free to all NHFT metal health patients (280+ patients started the training); we found significant improvements in anxiety, depression, and stress. One patient stated: “This course gave me confidence, taught me a lot about myself and how to control my stress levels”. Many staff requested access to the training and this project will give them free access.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Objectives:

1.         Offer free Be-Mindful

2.         Evaluate by collecting feedback and using a pre and post measures of stress, anxiety and depression

3.         Disseminate widely

4.         Support staff long-term wellbeing/recovery

5.         Support NHS provider implementation

Through offering and supporting take up of a proven on-line mindfulness training this project can improve the mental-health and wellbeing of staff. Staff will have ownership of the training and can apply Mindfulness principles in their clinical practice to improve how they cope and effectively engage with patients and colleagues. Staff can share the value of mindfulness to patients and colleagues allowing others to consider completing the training and applying in their lives. If training is undertaken by a clinical team it allows all members to collectively adopt and imbed skills, strengths and strategies to improve well-being, functioning and productivity.

By providing free universal and easy access the project can reduce health inequalities.

How will the project be delivered?

The project is co-ordinated and delivered by the team that successfully offered Be-Mindful to over 500 patients. NHFT’s staff wellbeing team will be involved.

We will apply our proven delivery process: staff will be informed about and offered free access, if they express an interest sent a pass code via text or email, they start and complete the course in their own timeframe. Outcome measures are collected by the software application.

Evaluation design is an open label cohort using pre and post assessment with self-report measures: Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Personal Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). Qualitative feedback will be collected. Be Mindful is relatively low cost and delivers high value for money, and may reduce costs associated with poor staff wellbeing.

Be-Mindful is publicly available, considered ‘low risk’ and provides on-line support; NHFT provides support for its staff as required.

How is your project going to share learning?

Findings will be widely disseminated through the Q community/events/media, professional networks, conferences, media (including social media), NHFT website and communications, and a journal article.

Following gaining informed consent, we will share staff experiences.

We will share how Be Mindful has beneficial effects.

We will share potential wider benefits of Be Mindful on factors such as sleep, social relationships, sense of purpose, contentment, emotions, and physical health

The project procedures will be manualised so it can be easily delivered in other NHS providers.

We will support other NHS providers to implement.

We have experience in working with and winning funding from academic health science network (AHSN) for the assessment and roll-out of innovation across NHS services. We will seek to engage with AHSN to see how they might support roll-out.