The mental health of the people working in mental health
WRITTEN BY SARAH HAYNES
Definition: ‘a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being.’
For a start, the Health and Social Care Act (2012) made it unlawful to discriminate between physical and mental health
Often being unfairly cast into second place by physical illness, maintaining an optimum psychological state is just as important as keeping your body fit and healthy. Poor mental health leads to a range of problems, from struggling to function due to depression and anxiety, to the more serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, psychosis and paranoid behaviours like schizophrenia. There are lots of medications available for the treatment of mental illnesses, but there is not a one-stop solution for curing them. Treatments are sophisticated and varied, but the reality is that few people who suffer with this type of affliction will go on to make a complete recovery. Relapsing is sadly all too common.
Who are those who work on the frontline of mental health needs?
There are different roles for those are who involved in helping to keep patients stable. These include:
- social workers
- community mental health nurses
- psychiatrists
- psychologists
- mental health pharmacists
- counsellors
Plus, those who work with patients in the community, like home helps for supported living.
Just in recent years, the NHS has more than doubled its spending on the treatment of mental health issues, from funding more frontline nurses, to investing more funds in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). But, while there’s a lot being done to help patients, an important question still stands – what about the mental health of the workers who are on the frontline in all this? Are their potential problems being recognised? Is enough support being made available to those who need it?
The research-based evidence in this paper from the Department of Clinical Psychology in the Nottinghamshire National Health Service Trust would suggest not:
“It has been suggested that a unique feature of some mental health practitioners’ work is exposure through their role as therapists to clients’ descriptions of and reactions to trauma, and that these experiences may actually indirectly cause distress and traumatization to the therapist. This……has been termed ‘‘vicarious traumatisation’’………. Factors such as direct trauma exposure and the personal attributes of mental health workers, which have been suggested to be associated with VT, are also assessed…. Future research needs to be directed at distinguishing VT from other sources of distress arising within the workplace. Finally, the organisational relevance of VT and its possible implications for the management of mental health workers (needs to be) critically appraised.”
Backing this up are the statistics spilling out; literally thousands of nurses, therapists and psychiatrists are leaving NHS mental health services. Two thousand mental health staff a month are leaving their posts in the NHS in England, according to figures from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). And a total of 23,686 mental health staff left the NHS between June 2017 and the end of May 2018, according to health minister Jackie Doyle-Price.
So, what can be done to improve the situation?
- First things first, the channels of communication need to be opened for those suffering as a result of providing mental health care. If NHS staff feel that their state of mind is something which can be spoken about, then this will go a long way towards them feeling supported and more confident in their role.
- The next stage is having that clear and open discussion about what the individual feels would improve their situation.
- Then comes implementation – how can their needs best be dealt with on a day to day basis.
- A careful look at workload is also highly beneficial. It might be that the person would benefit from reduced hours, a different split of hours or moving to a different role.
There isn’t going to be a simple solution here, the issues are becoming far more entrenched and this needs to be halted. If baby steps are taken, the whole culture of mental health care workers suffering as a result of their job will be slowly, but inexorably, reduced.
Lastly, a message from ‘Mary’:
“I’ve been a community mental health nurse for the last ten years. I initially came into the role because I felt that I could give the strong support to those who needed it in their home environment. I loved the job, and I still do, but it’s getting harder and harder to stay happy while I do it. The staff shortages mean that we have to work twice as hard and with more than double our original number of patients, which is very stressful. I worry that I’m not helping them as much as I should be, and this has made me depressed. I didn’t want to have time off work, but in the end, I had no choice but to take sick leave, on the advice of my GP. I hope to return to work soon, and I hope that I’ll deal with the stress better. Sadly, there are lots of people who will feel that they simply can’t carry on, which perpetuates this vicious cycle. I just want to do what is best for my patients but sometimes I feel that the NHS is stopping me from doing this, and that there should be more support available for those mental health workers.”
WRITTEN BY SARAH HAYNES