Staff psychology support team

Your mental health and emotional wellbeing matters.

To make sure that you have access to rapid support if you need it, we have established a staff support psychology team – made up of clinical psychologists, specialist therapists and counsellors.

They offer both pre-booked, drop-in 1-2-1 sessions, as well as team support, including:

Coping strategies
Anxiety management
Trauma-focused interventions
Mindfulness sessions
Coaching (including senior staff and leaders across the organisation on how to support the teams they care for)
Psychological first aid

The team have space in the Drummond Education Centre, and and also have a room in the operational directorate opposite the Time Out corridor. The team can also meet you in Time Out, the Courtyard Café, or even for a walk on the heath – anywhere where social distancing can be adhered to.

Telephone support and virtual consultations can be offered for those working from home or not able to access the West Suffolk Hospital site.

As the moment they’re available 8.00am – 4.00pm, Monday to Friday.

Contact them via Medic Bleep (search for ‘staff wellbeing’), call them on 01284 712598, 07971 884731, or drop them an email at staffsupport@wsh.nhs.uk.

Download a poster to pop up in your department here.

Change to covid-19 swabbing for staff and family

Since the start of the pandemic, the NHS has built a significant testing operation that includes walk-in and drive through test sites and at home testing. It has also invested in large-scale laboratories that can process and analyse swabs at scale and speed.

As a result, from November 1 we are making some changes to our approach to in-house PCR testing.We will no longer routinely offer Covid-19 PCR tests for staff or their families with suspected symptoms, or who have been identified as potential contacts of someone with Covid away from work. Instead, staff should use their nearest NHS testing centre - you can book online or by calling 119.

We will no longer operate the current testing pods near the Emergency Department at West Suffolk Hospital. We will continue to swab and test patients, and we will also offer PCR tests to staff in the event of a suspected outbreak at work. These changes will help us focus on patient testing to help with capacity across our services, and will often mean faster turnaround for staff results by taking advantage of national laboratory capacity. Staff will also be able to more easily register their results in the NHS Covid App.