More well-being support for emergency service crews dedicated to helping others
Emergency service staff who regularly face intensive physical and mental challenges now have extra support.
The Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service (EMRTS) is the ‘flying ED’ service who travel with the Wales Air Ambulance, bringing the expertise of an A&E department to the scene of emergency incidents.
The nature of the service means the EMRTS doctors and critical care practitioners (CCPs) are frequently confronted with physically demanding and emotionally draining situations at emergency incidents.
To protect staff and ensure they receive the best care, EMRTS has introduced a wellbeing plan, with a series of welfare supports.
EMRTS Patient Liaison Nurse Jo Yeoman said: “As a national charity providing pre-hospital critical care to the people of Wales, our staff continue to work tirelessly to ensure our patients receive the very best care we can deliver. As you can imagine, our staff regularly experience some particularly physically and mentally challenging situations.
“This June we launched our latest wellbeing initiatives for staff in a multi-site face-to-face well-being morning. Incorporating some incredible speakers on topics of burnout, mindfulness, trauma and debriefing, and a guided movement session from an international athlete.”
The event, at sites in both north and south Wales, also saw the launch of a series of new resources, including a staff wellbeing page on its website, linking to both internal and external support services, and revised peer support guidelines.
EMRTS consultant Louise Webster added: “The staff who attended the day shared their feedback by saying how much they enjoyed the morning and found the sessions and resources useful and informative.
“As an organisation, we will continue to strive to keep staff well-being high up on the agenda, to ensure our teams feel well supported and have access to a wide range of services to enhance their physical and psychological well-being.”
The event was supported by a series of sponsors, including: Rig Equipment Limited; Key Survival Equipment; Intersurgical Complete Respiratory Systems; Aguettant Ltd; Tesco Caernarfon and Tesco Broughton, and Spar.
A Key Survival Equipment spokesman said: “Key Survival Equipment Ltd were extremely proud to support the EMRTS Wellbeing Event that took place last week in Wales; and as a company we believe it is vitally important to recognise the hard work, dedication and skill the staff put into their jobs, in sometimes extremely physically and mentally challenging situations on a daily basis.
“As a small team ourselves, wellbeing and making people feel valued is something we strongly advocate so it was pleasure to be asked to support. Here’s to next year’s event.”
EMRTS Patient Liaison Nurse Hayley Whitehead-Wright added: “We are grateful to those companies for their generous financial support for the day, allowing us to provide our staff with food and refreshments on the day, and some personal equipment to support their physical and mental well-being.
“We would also like to thank both the charity and EMRTS staff who worked hard to make this day possible, and also Therapy Dogs Nationwide volunteers for bringing their dogs along.”