Mental resilience – why prioritising yourself is essential to supporting your patients

The Royal College of Psychiatrists announced that the UK is in 'the grip of a mental health crisis' at the start of April, when it revealed a UK-wide analysis of mental health services of the past year, within the pandemic.

We know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on our mental health as a nation, and this data across the UK as a whole is staggering. However, what of the mental health of the healthcare practitioners, social workers and carers who have been at the frontline of often overwhelmed services for more than a year?

A recent Parkinson's MasterClass delegate looked at the impact of deaths due to COVID-19 on her Parkinson's caseload - and her own mental health - for her intermodular project, and remarked:

'The importance of self-care when we care for others' was covered at the MS Trust earlier this year where Dr Anita Rose, consultant clinical neuropsychologist, discussed the danger of 'compassion fatigue'. Highlighting what it is, and why healthcare practitioners are particularly at risk of it, Anita extolled the need to prioritise self-care, sharing several practical tips.

At the annual conference 'Raising the Bar 2020', Dr Brian Marien talked about the likelihood of 'burnout' as a very real health problem within the medical workforce. He also highlighted that, aside from the stressful and challenging environment of healthcare, studies have found that medical students tend to have high levels of stress and psychological difficulties before beginning their medical studies.

Brian talked about mental resilience and the need to both develop it in ourselves, and model it to our peers and trainees.

Neurology Academy is proud to support healthcare practitioners with the education, tools and resources they need to deliver the best possible care to people with a neurological condition. That includes the tools to protect their mental health, develop mental resilience and lead by that example in their local areas.

Last year, we held a webinar for nurse practitioners on 'mind health' with consultant neuropsychologist Jo Johnson and MS specialist nurse Ruth Stross, and over 97 individuals have watched the practical webinar, quick tips from which are also online.

Eager to support the wider healthcare community in the same vein, next month, Neurology Academy is hosting a practical workshop on mental resilience. Unlike the webinar offered previously, this workshop will be fully interactive, designed to engage delegates in discussion and skill development.

Facilitated by GP Dr Karen Foreshaw and Chrissie Mobray, a trained physiotherapist, hypnotherapist and psychotherapist, the workshop will help delegates increase their self-awareness, assess their current mental resilience, and develop a range of skills to improve mental health and reduce the risk of burnout or compassion fatigue.

Find out more:

• Sign up for the Resilient Practice workshop

• Watch the Mind Health webinar

• Read our write-up of the MS Trust session 'The importance of self-care when we care for others'

• Learn from delegates' workplace projects such as 'But we never went out' in our Project space online.

• Find out more about Raising the Bar and Dr Brian Marien's talk.