Exhausted NHS workers in Milton Keynes offered help for anxiety, panic attacks and stress

The service provides support from experts and clinicians to workers suffering from the challenges of the Covid crisis

Provided by the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, is is open to any NHS staff members as well as care workers in residential homes and voluntary sector organisations

Keeping Well provides rapid access to support, including a ‘live-chat’ facility where health and care workers can, in confidence, talk to expert clinicians about any personal or professional challenges that are impacting on their stress, anxiety or mood.

There is help available for a long list of conditions and symptoms including low mood and depression, stress, anxiety and worry, social anxiety, health anxiety, panic attacks, low self-esteem, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobias.

Help is also on hand for staff suffering post Covid or long Covid symptoms.

Workers in MK can get help by calling 01908 725099 or by filling in the form here .

Claire Murdoch, Chief Executive of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Everyone is working tremendously hard in the face of this crisis. Emotional difficulties are a normal response to what they have faced and can be hard to process. We want staff to know we are here for them.

“You might be exhausted from juggling the pressures of home life and childcare, working on the frontline, social isolation and the uncertainty that this period brings to all our lives. The Keeping Well Service is designed to do just that – keep our key workers well - and offers everything from help with sleeping to more intensive assessment and treatment to deal with the aftermath of your experiences, whether you are experiencing new symptoms or a worsening of pre-existing difficulties; we are here."

Jake Thorpe, Milton Keynes IAPT Team Manager, said: “We are really pleased to be able to extend the offer of support to our colleagues, at what is a very trying time for many of them. I would urge anybody working in health and social care in BLMK who may be feeling stressed, anxious or low to contact us for support.”