In our last blog we spoke about caring about complaints. On the same theme of care our clinical lead Joanne Percival wanted to discuss as importantly about caring for yourself. Joanne has many years experience in helping and managing people so understands the pressures they face in health and social care.

As registered managers, care support and healthcare workers you are on the frontline of caring for people. Care staff are often the difference between care services running smoothly or having real staffing issues because of their own health related problems.

For this reason, and many others, it is important that your look after yourself so you can look after others. A resilient care workforce is vital for care services, and your own well-being.

Maintaining resilience can be as simple as remembering to take breaks, eat well and stay hydrated at work. We know many staff overlook these things as they battle with heavy workloads and staff shortages. But failure to look after yourself can make workloads and staff shortages even worse if you end up having to take time off.

Knowing where to go for help dealing with stress is also important and employers should have measures in place to assist staff if they are finding their stress levels unbearable. Health and social care is a stressful environment in which to work. Having mechanisms in place to cope will help you develop resilience and protect your own mental health.

Maintaining a good work-life balance is another area which can be overlooked. You will have responsibilities outside of work which can be pushed to one side if you are spending the whole time worrying about your job. Having the time to devote to your life outside means you are better able to cope with pressures in the workplace.

You can find more information about how you can protect your resilience by reading further information from NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and the health and wellbeing information provided by ACAS.

If you have any concerns about issues in the workplace you should in the first instance speak to your manager or your HR team.

Have you got a question about anything care related that you think we could help you with? Then please visit our new “Ask the team” page submit your question, and we will get back to you.