NHS Practitioner Health
Supporting the health of health professionals and NHS staff
Support for NHS and social care workforce in Scotland
The Workforce Specialist Service, delivered by NHS Practitioner Health, on behalf of the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland.
The WSS is a confidential, multidisciplinary mental health treatment service with expertise in treating regulated health and social services professionals. We specialise in caring for regulated professionals as patients, and as such are experts at the interface between regulation, employment and mental illness and addiction.
The WSS understands your needs as professionals with mental illness and/or addiction problems, how this might impact on your ability to seek our help, and how your condition might impact on your work and potentially those in your care. We are skilled at helping professionals return to work or training, and we treat practitioners with mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, or with more severe illnesses, such as bipolar affective disorder or personality disorders and with a range of addictions.
This is available to all regulated NHS and care staff working as part of the Scottish workforce on a self-referral basis.
How to access mental health support via NHS Practitioner Health
Registration forms are available on the website: www.practitionerhealth.nhs.uk or by contacting us directly: email: prac.health@nhs.net or by phone: 0300 030 3300.
What can the service offer?
Each patient will have a 60-90 minute initial consultation where a detailed history and examination would be undertaken. Even though many of our patients present with illnesses similar to those of non-practitioners (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder), the context in which their problems sit is different. So often the underlying cause of their illness is due to a combination of work-related stresses, family difficulties, a recent life event, a complaint or adverse outcome at work.
Common presentations we see:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Stress
- Burnout
- Overwhelmed
- Addiction
- Support with coping with investigations or complaints
Practitioner Health has a number of options available to support and treat the patients who access the service: www.practitionerhealth.nhs.uk/treatment
This could include:
- Ongoing case management
- Initiating prescribing (usually with the involvement of the patient's own GP) www.practitionerhealth.nhs.uk/prescription-requests
- Issuing a Fit note to enable time to recuperate
- Talking therapies - cognitive behaviour therapy, relapse prevention, brief psychotherapy
- Therapeutic Group support - topic or profession based
- Specialist psychiatric assessment
- Access to in-patient addiction detoxification and rehabilitation (sites in England and Scotland)
- Therapeutic blood or urine monitoring as part of treatment
- Relapse prevention group
- Peer support
Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday 8am-8pm
Saturday 8am-2pm
Contact
Tel: 0300 0303 300
Email: prac.health@nhs.net
Events info: workforce.wellbeing@nhs.net
Published: 06/07/2021 15:46