Peer Support is a service which offers early emotional support to healthcare staff and is delivered by their peers who have “been there”. Peer Supporters undergo training to upskill themselves in delivering “psychological first aid”. This is defined as a compassionate and supportive presence designed to mitigate acute distress and assess the need for continued mental health care.
Peer Support is not a counselling or mentoring service. It is where a colleague has been trained to have a supportive conversation with their distressed peer, to utilise empathic listening and signpost to helpful resources or to the next level of professional help if necessary.
Staff that decide to become Peer Supporters are made aware of the commitment and need manager approval linked to the role.
Peer Supporters complete monthly monitoring of the peer support work, which feeds in to our Peer Subgroup which is held bi-monthly, where we are reviewing lessons learned and next steps around roll out of Peer Support across NHS Grampian.
Peer Supporters are offered two opportunities a month to access supervision provided alongside a variety of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities to attend, most recently stress and anxiety coping strategies and mindfulness. Peer Support is currently being promoted through a variety of promotional resources, briefing opportunities, launch events and topics of the week opportunities in:
ED, Radiology
Radiotherapy
Neonatal departments
Critical Care
Pathology in ARI
If you are interested in launching Peer Support in your department, along with a small team of colleagues, minimum 3, please get in touch with gram.wecare@nhs.scot for the next training dates available.