Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust is proud to have been notified that the organisation has been successful in its submission to attain the Better Health at Work Continuing Excellence Award.

Claire Vesey, Deputy Director of People and Organisational Development at Gateshead Health, shared: “Our ongoing participation in the Better Health at Work Award accreditation demonstrates the organisation’s commitment to supporting our people. We want to be not only a great place to receive care, but an outstanding place to work, too.

“As this year’s submission highlights, we listen to our staff through so many feedback routes. It can be tough to balance the varying demands, but our aim will always be to ensure that our colleagues feel supported, regardless of what their concern is, through a range of provisions including the dedicated Health and Wellbeing initiatives available through the Balance website.

“We constantly listen to feedback from staff to identify areas of support around wellbeing that they would like to see implemented, and devise our health and wellbeing campaigns based on this feedback. Being able to do this while also offering a robust and varied offer that covers issues which may be less common but are just as meaningful to those experiencing them is a testament to the value the award brings.”

“We always want to hear your feedback on our Health and Wellbeing offer and how we can improve upon this. Over the coming months we will be out and about sharing information and gathering your feedback so we can ensure the support we have in place for staff remains relevant, makes a difference and that all staff know how to access the resources available on our website.”

Health and Wellbeing Manager Dale Jones added: “It’s great to have taken another step up the Better Health at Work Award ladder and receive the Continuing Excellence accreditation. The resources we have to carry out wellbeing are often pretty vulnerable to external influences. Even in the space of time that we’ve gone from the Bronze award to Continuing Excellence, a lot has changed. Despite that, we’re still working to make improvements, still working to put staff first and still have the ambition to continue driving forwards.

“The year ahead won’t be any different in that respect. We’ll have another chance to conduct a workplace health needs assessment with staff and drill down a bit deeper into specific wellbeing-related needs of the workforce. That exercise will also help to inform our health and wellbeing priorities for the future.

“As with previous years, I’d like to thank the input of our health & wellbeing ambassadors, mental health first aiders, line managers, People Advisory team, Organisational Development team and Occupational Health team, all of who play a massive role in helping support the wellbeing of our staff; as well as Louise at Gateshead Council for her support with the submission.”

What’s next:

We will be out and about visiting staff and sharing the resources we have available via our Balance website. We are keen to come along to team meetings and promote resources so please drop us an email if you would like us to come along and talk to staff about support available.

Efforts now begin to try achieve a higher level of BHAWA accreditation for the fourth consecutive year, this time at the ‘Maintaining Excellence’ level of the Better Health at Work Award, recognising the extensive health and wellbeing offer which is in place.

As touched on above, this will include a Health Needs Assessment to be launched in the coming months, where staff will be asked about the things they’re seeking support on most from a wellbeing standpoint. This information, along with soon-to-be-received data from our annual Staff Survey, will help inform our priority campaigns for 2025 – as well some of the content of a new staff wellbeing strategy which will be a key part of our next BHAWA submission.