Mental Health and Wellbeing at Hay Festival 2015

In late May 2015 I had the pleasure of attending the 2015 Hay festival.  In recent years the Hay Festival has greatly expanded from a literature festival to a firm favourite of experts from all fields looking to inspire change and exchange ideas.

CUREMeDE's current collaboration with Dr Mark Stacey on human factor training and resilience for doctors meant my long list of must see talks included Steve Peters (sports psychiatrist and author of The Chimp Paradox) and Dame Carol Black (expert advisor to the Department of Health on the welfare of working people).

As a sports Psychiatrist, Steve Peters works with elite athletes on improving performance under pressure. Steve's simple mind management system works on the basic principle of "if you don't understand what's going on, you can't work on the problem".

Steve said:

"In clinical practice we have shifted ground, stress levels have risen… yet there is still a taboo surrounding mental health."

Steve believes interventions such as mindfulness can be of significant benefit in high stress work environments. He also firmly believes that as individuals we must be prepared to work on our mental wellbeing at least as much as our physical.

Perhaps more directly related to our work with Mark, Dame Carol Black focussed on fostering wellbeing at work. As part of the Cambridge university series, Dame Carol's talk, titled "Is work making us ill?" looked at the promotion of health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Like Steve, Dame Carol stated that practices such as mindfulness and yoga have proved successful at increasing employee wellbeing. She went on to mention that despite the research, public sector and NHS organisations have been slow to adapt:

"I think, partly, it's taken them [organisations such as police and NHS] quite a while to realise that these things are not 'soft and fluffy' … but if you get it right in, for example the health service, you are going to get better patient care."

Dame Carol believes that the main issue for employees within large institutions such as NHS is increasing demands and a larger complex workload which in turn has led to low morale amongst staff.  Yet, she argues, we know that patient safety is directly linked to employee engagement.

Responding to a question from the audience Dame Carol discussed the need for an awareness that the number of people in higher education with mental health issues is increasing. She explained that this will inevitably filter through to the next generation of employees and we need to be prepared.

In response to another question on the effect of the working time directive on junior doctor satisfaction levels Dame Carol remarked:

"… We're seeing an increase in sickness in doctors which never used to be there and desperately, regrettably, the suicide numbers, when you look at them for the last few years in doctors, is not where we would wish them to be."

Perhaps most importantly Dame Carol highlighted the relationship between employee wellbeing and patient care arguing that increased employee wellbeing will ultimately lead to better patient care. 

You can listen to Dame Carol Black's talk "Is work making us ill?" on soundcloud.