Health and wellbeing champions

NHS England (NHSE) defines health and wellbeing champions as individuals at all levels of the NHS who actively promote, identify, and signpost ways to support the health and wellbeing of their colleagues.

A health and wellbeing champion is a dedicated member of your workforce who supports the overall wellbeing of staff within your organisation.

 Why are they important?

• Local expertise: Health and wellbeing champions know their work areas intimately and are well placed to recognise what strategies will work best in their team's environment.
• Resource signposting: They can direct colleagues to the wider resources and support systems that the organisation has in place.
• Strategic benefits: Having health and wellbeing champions in post is extremely beneficial to your staff, supporting your organisation's wellbeing strategy, the national wellbeing agenda, and the NHS health and wellbeing framework.

Many NHS organisations have similar roles but may use different names, such as wellbeing allies, advocates, or officers. 

Health and wellbeing champion roles may vary across organisations however, here are some key responsibilities:

• Being a role model for promoting positive health and wellbeing within your organisation, team and department.  
• Work closely with health and wellbeing leads or the person responsible for delivering the health and wellbeing strategy in the organisation.
• listen actively to colleagues.  Be that supportive ear when appropriate.
• Help staff navigate the wellbeing resources and support available to them.
• Collaborate with health and wellbeing leads to support the overall health and wellbeing strategy.
• Remind colleagues to take breaks and to look after themselves. Simple actions like drinking plenty of fluids, taking lunchtime walks and pursuing hobbies can boost overall wellbeing.
• Encourage colleagues to take time to reflect and be aware of their physical and mental health.
• Please note: Health and Wellbeing champions are not expected to provide advice to colleagues. They are there to listen and direct colleagues to the services your organisation provides. Including mental health support. 

A health and wellbeing champion can be anyone with a passion for health and wellbeing. They can be from across the organisation, in any role and at any grade. The ideal candidates must be members of staff who are driven to support the health and wellbeing of their colleagues.

Health and wellbeing champions do not need to be from a clinical background, as this is a practical role to ensure the continued safety and health and wellbeing of our colleagues.

It is important that candidates who are interested in becoming a health and wellbeing champion have a conversation with their line manager beforehand. This champion role requires the person to be available, so support from their line manager is essential.

Introducing health and wellbeing champions in your organisation can be transformative.  Collaborate with your HR, OD and health and wellbeing teams to achieve this by:

• Ensure there is a clear role description outlining the responsibilities of a champion. Provide training for those interested in becoming champions to equip them with the necessary skills. 
• Promote the positions through the staff intranet, posters around the trust, social media, wellbeing newsletters and communications bulletins
• Encourage staff to spread the word about the opportunity.
• Hold meetings with senior leaders to ensure they communicate the initiative to line managers 
• Assure potential applicants that they will have protected time to fulfill the role, addressing concerns about additional time commitments.

Introducing a new initiative into your organisation can feel challenging; however, there are many ways you can introduce the implementation of health and wellbeing champions successfully across your organisation.  

• Creating posters that outline the role of a health and wellbeing champions, how they support colleagues and where to find them.
• Issuing health and wellbeing champions with distinct lanyards, badges or badges to make them easily identifiable.  
• Adding a note to champions' email signatures identifying health and wellbeing champions and providing contact details.
• Creating an intranet section with information and photos of health and wellbeing champions and details on how staff can find them.
• Hosting regular drop-in sessions with health and wellbeing champions, providing a welcoming space for colleagues to connect and discuss their wellbeing.
• Collaborating with your health and wellbeing guardian to ensure that the role of health and wellbeing champions is highlighted and prioritised at board level.

Health and wellbeing leads support and guide health and wellbeing champions. They serve as a primary contact for champions and escalate any identified issues to the board, ensuring awareness of staff challenges and concerns.

Wellbeing leads are there to support the champions, but the champions should recognise that this is theirs to own and manage. Wellbeing leads can support champions in various ways:

• Ensure wellbeing champions understand their responsibilities by providing a detailed role description.
• Providing champions with access to a dedicated inbox for their queries.
• Organise group sessions for coffee mornings with health and wellbeing champions to check in and discuss current issues faced by frontline staff.
• Ensure health and wellbeing champions receive necessary information for their roles, including access to relevant meetings and training.

NHS England developed a range of resources for NHS organisations to support health and wellbeing champions.

When appointed, health and wellbeing champions will gain access to an online community of practice network for support, check-ins, sharing good practices and discussing challenges.

Health and wellbeing champions can access a monthly development programme with themed online learning sessions to support them in their role.  

The Long Term Workforce Plan emphasises the critical need to retain our dedicated NHS workforce. Employers must evaluate and enhance their wellbeing offerings, ensuring that staff experience comprehensive support throughout their careers. A positive work environment and robust support systems are essential for encouraging staff to stay committed and thrive within the NHS.

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has recruited and trained 180 health and wellbeing champions in the trust since 2012. The organisation worked with its HR department to create a clear job description for health and wellbeing champions. They produced a document outlining the expectations for these champions, such as the importance of being visible within the community.

The trust provides champions with:

• regular support meetings and coffee mornings to check in on how they are doing
• an inbox managed by the health and wellbeing team where they can send any queries
• protected time to ensure that they can fulfill their champion duties.
• They are planning to train and support additional champions to enable all health and wellbeing champions to share and signpost, rather than becoming specific specialists. The organisation’s wellbeing guardian is very supportive of the champions and assures that they are constantly being discussed at board level.

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust has recruited and trained 280 wellbeing champions in the trust since 2016. The trust has successfully done this by holding a wellbeing day where they handed out flyers to members of staff, encouraging them to join and to raise awareness.

When appointed, the health and wellbeing lead shared the following information with the champion:

• a role descriptor, caveating that every team will be different and that the champion needs to get to know their team for them to be successful
• signs them up to receive a wellbeing Wednesday bulletin, which details all the wellbeing information the champions can signpost their colleagues to
• invites them to the two health and wellbeing champion events they have each year.

To continue recruiting champions in the organisation, each month the trust issues a wellbeing hero award to all staff and encourages the winner to volunteer to be a health and wellbeing champion.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust introduced health and wellbeing champions into their organisation in 2019 as a part of their quality improvement project. The trust now has around 150 health and wellbeing champions in post as well as six wellbeing leads.

The trust follows this procedure to recruit health and wellbeing champions:

• They are sent an application form (manager approval is required) and a role descriptor.
• Once that is returned, they are then asked to complete e-learning packages on the process of having supportive conversations and mental health responder, each one takes around 40 minutes. On completion of the training, they then schedule an induction with the wellbeing lead. This is an opportunity to give clarity and expectations, and share what other champions within the network are doing. 
• The trust also offers a six-hour diffuser training that they can access if they wish. This was put together by the company that trained the staff in crisis management.

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has implemented 46 health and wellbeing champions into their organisation since 2019. In December 2019 the organisation sought out what they could do to make their organisation better.

Due to the geographical spread of the trust, the health and wellbeing team targeted localities to ensure that they had a health and wellbeing champion within each speciality. Upon recruitment, champions receive a three-hour training session from Better Health at Work that focuses on regional priorities and how they can support their team members.

The champions are supported by:

• A Facebook group with all the other champions to share good practice,
• Weekly wellbeing emails to signpost options for staff.

The trust is planning to get each champion a hoodie so that they are visible to all staff members and are in the process of training their next cohort of champions.

We would love to hear how you have recruited health and champions in your organisation, please email us.