National Collaborative Project with Paediatric Emergency Departments
SWell - PED
Staff Wellbeing Interventions for Paediatric Critical Care
Welcome to SWell!
The SWell project started with a research project funded by Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital Trust Charity. It aimed to understand what workplace wellbeing meant to people working in Paediatric Critical Care, what could be feasibly be done to help improve their wellbeing.
We were really keen to make sure that the Staff Wellbeing interventions we developed were evidence-based, theoretically informed, and feasible to be delivered by staff for staff in Paediatric Critical Care.
Through a partnership with the Peadiatric Critical Care Society, we conducted some national projects to explore more broadly the meanings of wellbeing challenges experienced by staff.
We then received funding from Aston University’s Higher Education Innovation Fund and NHS England to test the interventions we developed on a national scale. We found the SWell interventions were feasible, well liked by staff and showed a promising positive impact on staff wellbeing.
We are now upscaling our delivery of SWell interventions to test whether it’s possible to gather longer-term data on staff wellbeing to help us determine whether any positive impact on psychological wellbeing is sustainable.
The SWell project team comprises applied health psychology researchers based at Aston University, Birmingham, and clinical colleagues working in paediatric critical care in the United Kingdom.
What does wellbeing mean to you? How is your wellbeing challenged at work? What can you do to improve and maintain your wellbeing at work? These simple questions can help you along the way to being happier and healthier both at work and at home.
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"It's probably just how chaotic we are sometimes and how intense the unit is and the high acuity of the patients … We have to put these people and families first, that we push ourselves back and we don't think about wellbeing"
John Smith - ICU Nurse
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"I think actually it feels a little bit like we’re conducting at work when we’re there, sometimes like quite a big, crazy, chaotic orchestra, and so I think wellbeing for me is when I feel that maybe I’ve controlled things well and conducted things well."
Bob Smith - PIC Consultant
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"The teamwork is the thing that really keeps it all going because … when you're working as a team, it's a phenomenal feeling."
Jane Score - ICU Nurse