Judges’ view

The judges were blown away with the innovation and commitment and were keen to ensure that it could be sustained. Vision, energy and strength of communication, with the data clearly supporting its claims of great success and reach.

DoingOurBit is an online fitness platform with over 50 free workouts for NHS staff. Julie Davis, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at the Clinical Research Network West Midlands and advocate of exercise for physical and mental wellbeing,  sourced free workouts to help her colleagues cope. Her idea caught the eye of The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust which wanted the workouts for its 10,000 staff. Active IQ, Study Active and fibodo rallied to engage physiotherapists to record workouts and upload them to a specially designed platform. Within eight weeks on June 15, 2020, #DoingOurBit went live and currently 97 NHS Trusts are onboard, reaching 585,000 staff.

Key points:

• While born out of necessity during lockdown, #DOB has the potential to support the wellbeing of the NHS into the future; new Trusts are signing up each week
• Within the fitness industry, ukactive and CIMSPA have given their support. They are engaging with other partners, Public Health England and Sport England, to secure funding to to take it to the next level
• Ultimate goal is to make the NHS more self-sufficient in terms of managing its own physical activity
• Exploring the use of NHS employees as #DOB Champions, ensuring they are trained to a high level to deliver sessions.

SCARF (Support, Care, Assist, Recognise, and Family) is a wraparound support programme for the Northern Care Alliance’s 18,000 colleagues. They recognised that their wellbeing offer was limited, outdated and hard to navigate causing diffculty for staff to access. SCARF was designed to resolve these issues and help staff to access the support they needed when they needed it. The initiative is underpinned by a strong communication strategy which has brought the programme to life, and executive support has been crucial.

Judges’ view

Great innovation shown in the response from traditional printed materials through to zoom based reset days. Very good results, well evaluated.

Multi-disciplinary team successfully created a programme providing  tiered and targeted approach to staff wellbeing. The programme’s key successes were its scale, speed, reach, sustainability and impact on wellbeing and engagement. It has been highly valued, effective and substantially impacted upon organisational culture. Wellbeing hubs were visited by up to 3,000 staff per day during the peak of the 2nd surge of COVID for psychological support, advice, resources and information. Demand remains high with around 2,000 staff per day accessing them. 

Judges’ view

Impressive project which sought to provide real and tangible support to key staff at the heart of the pandemic response.