My wellbeing at work

16 Dec 2019

Continuing our “Season of Good Wellbeing”, Dr Jack Fairweather has written a blog on what helps his wellbeing at work. Jack is an ST7 Renal and General Internal Medicine and the Vice-Chair of our Trainees’ Committee:

My wellbeing at work has been dramatically improved by working in an environment where junior doctors are valued; encouraged to take leading and active parts in the running of the service; and where engagement in and feedback on their experience is actively sought, listened to, and acted upon.

They’re a whole set of structures that have been set up in my hospital that allow this to happen. We have regular trainee forums, a well-established Chief Resident programme, and, crucially, highly engaged clinical and non-clinical managers who are interested in the wellbeing of their workforce. They recognise that healthy, happy staff work best for their patients too.

Through these processes, the trainee rotas have been optimised. The induction procedures have been improved, a high-quality junior doctors’ mess has been opened and maintained. Good-quality rest facilities have been provided with lockers, workspaces and working IT kit have all been made available – these are to name just a few examples.

A culture of raising issues and engaging with improvement has been fostered and this has spread from just issues impacting on trainee wellbeing, to wider service and patient-facing issues like medical receiving processes, discharge and communication procedures, referral pathways etc. These have a clear impact on the clinical work we do.

Category: Wellbeing