In September 2024 Health Innovation East Midlands held an Innovation Exchange on workforce and wellbeing solutions. 

During the pandemic, health and care staff faced indescribable difficulties with many studies reporting increased rates of depression, anxiety, stress and other serious issues.  Whilst sickness absence rates have declined since their peak in January 2022, rates remain higher than those observed pre-pandemic with variation across the country and by care setting.

One of the key focus areas of the 2023 NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is retention, including a commitment to support the health and wellbeing of the NHS workforce. It recognises that the lack of support in this area was a key reason influencing people’s decision to move outside of the NHS in 2022.  The NHS Staff Survey  that year also identified that 34.0% of staff often or always felt burnt out because of their work and 37.4% found their work "emotionally exhausting." 

A Kings Fund study confirmed that an integrated approach to staff wellbeing can increase employee engagement, which plays an important role in patient experience, satisfaction and mortality rates.

The following challenge areas have been identified and the event looked at:

• Solutions proven to directly impact staff health and wellbeing, evidenced through an improvement in either absence or retention rates
• Solutions that aid improvement in emotional and mental health, including counselling 
• Solutions that can assist in maintaining good physical health.

You can watch a recording of the event here.

You can view the delegate pack here.

For information contact Michael Ellis, Senior Innovation Lead at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.