Stress Awareness Day 2023
To mark Stress Awareness Day 2023 on Wednesday 1 November, we're highlighting a range of resources to support employers to tackle stress in the workplace and promote good mental wellbeing.
According to the 2022 NHS Staff Survey results, 40.6 per cent of staff reported feeling unwell as the result of work-related stress in the last 12 months (a slight decrease in 2021 from 41.5 per cent, but still higher than pre-pandemic level of 39.8 per cent in 2019).
It is vital to address how stress experienced both inside and outside of work can be damaging to our NHS people and organisations. Employers need to support their colleagues to be happy and healthy which ultimately helps ensure they deliver excellent patient care.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which regulates workplace safety in the NHS, describes work-related stress as "the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them". The HSE rightly views stress as a work-related hazard that can lead to harm and expects employers to put measures in place to help reduce stress in the workplace.
As we mark this year's Stress Awareness Day, find below a selection of resources that will help you support your staff.
- Prevention and management of stress at work - guidance to support colleagues experiencing stress.
- Stress and impact in the workplace - a webinar from the NHS Staff Council’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing Group which looks at work-related stress.
- Supporting our NHS people experiencing stress - web page with useful information to help support people experiencing stress.
- Talking toolkit aims to reduce work stress - a toolkit specifically developed by the HSE for NHS service providers.
- Mental health in the workplace - tools and resources for you to help improve mental health in the workplace.
- Health and wellbeing conversations - a resource which aims to help managers have confident and effective conversations to support their staff.
- Supporting mental health at work - Acas guidance on why it’s important to take good mental health at work seriously.
- Work-related stress: lifting the pressure at work podcast - Podcast by Acas on identifying the causes of work-related stress and supporting mental health and wellbeing at work.
