Mental Health Matters

Mental Health Matters. Remember that as Medical Students you have a duty to look after your own health, and your mental health is just as important as your physical wellbeing. The career you are about to enter can be very demanding on your mental health and therefore, we've compiled a list of things you can do to ensure that you look after yours.

The Mental Health Foundation's ten step guide to looking after your mental health offers simple changes that any can do which improve the way you take care of yourself.

Via: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk

The following are provided by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals and as medical students based here, you are able to access them.

Care First - Counselling and support service for staff. Free and confidential and can be accessed 24/7

Shift Your Stress - Five weeks intervention based on CBT. This is a self-managed therapeutic intervention that is focussed on the development of psychological resilience. Complete the programme and take a significant step towards building the tools to mitigate workplace stress and promote overall psychological wellbeing. View more information here.

Suicide Prevention Online Training (Free) - NHS staff are being encouraged to complete a free, online training course in suicide prevention. The training course from the Zero Suicide Alliance takes just 20 minutes.

Local and National Support Groups - The Trust has put together a list of national and local support groups including, domestic abuse, debt advice and mental health/behaviour support. For more information click here.

Mental Health Champions - Our very own Ang Coles and Wendy Jenkinson are Mental Health Champions, a point of contact if you, or someone you are concerned about, are experiencing a mental health issue or emotional distress. They are not therapists or psychiatrists but they can give you initial support and signpost you to appropriate help if required. See here for a full list of mental health champions within the trust.

Mindfulness - The Trust runs a one day and eight-week structured stress reduction mindfulness programme to alleviate the suffering associated with stress and anxiety. You can book onto these directly via the Training Diary.

Peer 2 Peer - We have trained a group of staff from across our two hospitals as volunteer listeners to support other colleagues. Volunteers are trained to provide confidential, non-judgemental, peer support; signposting to other agencies. P2P Volunteers are trained in supportive listening skills but they won’t be acting as counsellors. For more information please visit http://intranet/hr/p2p.asp

Coaching - The Trust has a number of coaches throughout the organisation. If you are looking for a coach to help you work through some current issues and challenges please visit http://nww.sath.nhs.uk/learning/CoachingandMentoring.asp

And finally, I thought I'd share the Action for Happiness for October. Click on the image to be taken to the website when you can put the full years calendar in your phone and get daily suggestions to help create a happier and kinder world.

As medical students you are also able to contact Student Welfare at

medicine.sath-studentwelfare@keele.ac.uk and organise a meeting. Meetings with Student Welfare are strictly confidential and will not be put with your student file. Unless someone is at risk, whatever you say in the meeting will stay between you and Dr Jones-Perott.

As always, we hope you're enjoying your time at SaTH and remember if you have any queries, remember the office is open 8.15am-5.30pm Monday to Wednesday and 8.30am-5.30pm Thursday and Friday.