NHS Grampian support service assisting people through pandemic
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New figures have revealed more than 1400 people have accessed psychological support from NHS Grampian to help them cope with issues caused by Covid-19.
The health board set up a service to assist all ages who are impacted by the pandemic.
The virtual Psychological Resilience Hub, which was the first of its kind in Scotland, was launched days after lockdown was imposed, as virus cases rose across the country.
Since then people have referred themselves to the service which acts as "psychological first aid” to those struggling with changes and fears caused by the virus, and aims to reduce distress, support staff to remain at work, reduce presentations to front line medical areas and prevent further psychological harm.
Dr Lynne Taylor, director of psychology at NHS Grampian, said: “It's been important to have this facility during this period because it has been much needed to be able to give people the extra support and psychological advice needed.
“There's been more than 1400 people used the service so far, which has included parents of young children, adolescents, adults and staff – we have been able to help quite a lot really.
“The problem is the current situation is so unknown and so unexpected with no end point, if you are the kind of person who likes to feel in control, or have experienced trauma before, then the current climate is not going to be one where you have this.
“Lots of people are worried about practical things too such as losing their jobs or are realising that working from home isn't temporary and it's going to be longer term.”
Members of the public and staff self refer themselves by filling in an online form. They are then triaged to an appropriate clinician depending on level of distress and they are experiencing.
They are contacted by someone from the hub and are offered up to three sessions of support.
There are four levels of teams of staff providing support depending on level of distress.
At the start of lockdown the service had more than 80 volunteers providing time to the service. It is now transitioning to a core clinical team with a smaller number of volunteers.
Dr Taylor added: “As the phases of local lockdowns vary in the coming months, and the unknown aspects of the virus and infection rates, the psychological impact for many is growing.
“The responses of individuals are unique and for many they are coping well, but the service is there to support those who feel they need that extra bit of help.
“When lockdown was lifted we were averaging 80-90 referrals a week but it now around 50 at the moment. A quarter are from staff and the rest are the public.
“Children tend to be coming for lower levels of support as they have shown lower levels of stress but this has started to change since schools have gone back.
"The adults are tending to come in with high levels of stress rather than the low. The staff have come in across all four levels pretty much equally – ranging from mild distress through to quite significant.
“The staff referrals went up very quickly to start with but now they have gone right down, the public ones weren't going up initially but now they are.”
Feedback from those that had used the hub has been overwhelmingly positive – with more than 97 per cent of those using the service saying they found it useful and more than 80 per cent saying they were better able to cope as a result of their virtual appointments.
“With the hub we've had so much positive feedback about it from people who have never accessed that type of support before and found it to be really easy to speak to someone," said Dr Taylor.
"It's virtual and they can speak to someone from the comfort of their own home, at various times of day and without having to travel to a clinic.
“It's not intensive psychological therapy, it's more around being advised about psychological tips and techniques and signposting. Struggling at the moment is not necessarily a sign of having significant mental health difficulties, it's just that it is okay not to be okay and people can get that extra bit of help that they need to get them back on track.
“Most people will notice as things go back to normal their emotions will go back to normal too and that should help.
“But all the data tells us we will need this facility for many more months and at the moment funding is in place for the administration teams and senior levels through to March 2021.”
More information on the hub is available at https://covid19.nhsgrampian.org/
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