National SWell Feasibility Study in UK Paediatric Critical Care Units

This project was funded by Aston University’s Higher Education Innovation Funding and NHS England.

Project Summary

This national feasibility study tested in 14 UK Paediatric Critical Care units whether the SWell Interventions were feasible to deliver in busy PCC settings and whether they were acceptable to PCC staff.

We also tested the feasibility of collecting measures of psychological wellbeing before staff attended a SWell session and immediately afterwards.

During the feasibility phase (2023) we delivered 104 SWell interventions to 573 PCC staff in 14 PCC Units in England and Scotland. Pre/post analyses of psychological wellbeing on 130 matched pairs of staff showed significant improvements in wellbeing and depression scores.

Unfortunately, it was not feasible to collect longer term follow-up data (only 6% at 3 months and 5% at 6 months completed the surveys).

You can read the full report of the feasibility study here.

Further work is ongoing to pilot new ways of gathering psychological wellbeing data online through this website. Watch this space!

"Our staff engaged really well, it created a buzz around the unit with members of the team asking if they could be swelled on shift!!…We are keeping it as part of our staff wellbeing."

As well as our original core team in Birmingham, we also have our SWell National Team

Peter Donnelly

Consultant Intensivist, Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, The Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow

Hena Syed-Sabir

Clinical Psychologist, Co-Chair Paediatric Critical Care Society Wellbeing Special Interest Group and Paediatric Critical Care Unit, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham