Staff are happy and healthier

Happy and healthy staff provide better care for patients according to independent research. An audit of 178 NHS trusts in England has found that Guy’s and St Thomas’ programme to improve staff health and well-being has achieved impressive results.

The audit by the Royal College of Physicians shows that our overall score for improving staff health and well-being increased from 54.7 (out of 100) in 2010 to 92.5 in 2013.

Areas they looked at include:

• reducing obesity 
• encouraging physical activity 
• providing smoking cessation services
• promoting well-being
• tracking long-term sickness absence.

Michelle D’Arcy, well-being and engagement manager, says: "We’ve worked really hard to develop a health and well-being programme that supports staff including smoking cessation services, help to get active and lose weight.

"Staff are telling us that it’s making a difference to their lives and this also benefits patients. I’m proud that this independent audit has recognised the improvements we’ve made."

The audit examines how NHS trusts with more than 850,000 staff are implementing health and well-being guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

Weight loss success

One of the biggest improvement areas was tackling obesity. The introduction of a staff dietitian, a subsidised Weightwatchers programme, and promoting healthy food options mean our score of 100 outperforms the national average of 38 by a long way.

Did you know?

• more than 350 staff have used our self-referral physiotherapy service – 50% said that it stopped them having to take time off work
• 110 staff took part in our subsidised Weightwatchers scheme
• 620 staff took part in the 2013 Global Corporate Challenge – clocking up almost 600,000 kms and burning off 37 million calories.

The report is available from the Royal College of Physicians.

For information about working at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and staff benefits visit our careers pages.