Team focus: Meet the team behind the wellbeing of our service
With our annual flu season well and truly underway, we thought we would shine a light on the team responsible for keeping us all well at work, our occupational health team.
Our occupational health team consists of occupational health specialist nurses, a consultant, nurse advisors and occupational health administrators, and undergoes accreditation by the Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Service (SEQOHS) every five years to ensure it is providing safe, effective, quality care to those people we rely on in an emergency.
Together, the team provides support and advice to both employees and NEAS as an employer as well as delivering vaccinations, health surveillance, such as eye screening and audiometry, and pre-employment medicals.
Over the last year, the team has also strengthened the mental health support it provides for colleagues, implementing an employee mental maintenance programme consists of an employee toolkit, a personalised plan, which acts as a reflective journal, manager guides and a suicide prevention resource.
The team also has access to an external physiotherapist as well as psychological services offered by external partners, and was this month shortlisted for a HR Excellence Award this month in recognition of its partnership with Gateshead-based mental health consultancy service Talk Works offering rapid access to psychological services for our colleagues.
The flu vaccination programme is one of the biggest campaigns run by the team each year, and helps keep our service running when it matters most.
All NEAS staff are eligible to receive their vaccine at one of the NEAS vaccination clinics.
Victoria Wright, head of staff experience, occupational health and wellbeing, said: “Our occupational health team is dedicated to ensuring our colleagues have the support they need to remain well at work. They really do an amazing job of looking after our colleagues each day and having a healthy workforce means that our people are better equipped to look after our patients, day in day out."