Wellbeing in health and social care – what is it and why is it important?
Self-care and wellbeing and being able to have the tools to manage it better is getting more and more important in workplaces, and health and social care are no different.
With the events of recent years, the impact of the pandemic, strikes, and now the cost-of-living crisis, promoting wellbeing in health and social care has never been so important not just for individuals but for support workers, carers, local authorities, and care providers too.
It is vital to be able to promote wellbeing in health and social care to avoid and improve outcomes. Having support workers and carers with bad mental health and wellbeing can increase the likelihood of errors which in turn can impact the quality of care delivered.
But what is the definition of wellbeing in health and social care, why is it important, and what can cause both an end-user’s wellbeing as well as a support worker’s wellbeing to decline?
At the Access Group, we put the individual at the heart of everything we do. We know the challenges facing the health and social care market and how important it is to ensure support workers and carers have a good work-life balance to ensure end-users get the care support they at the highest quality possible.
This article will review what wellbeing is in health and social care, what can cause it to decline, as well as ways to promote it and how technology can help implement better strategies so challenges can be overcome without leading to longer waiting times and discharge delays, burnout in social care, and ultimately people leaving the profession altogether.
What is wellbeing in health and social care?
Wellbeing, in general, can be defined as the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy. Wellbeing in health and social care refers to the overall state of a person’s physical, mental, emotional, and social satisfaction with life.
For many in health and social care, stress and burnout are real issues. A report published by Community Care found that 73% of their respondents scored highest in the category of emotional exhaustion.
Supporting the health and wellbeing of the workforce as well as their patients and end-users themselves is equally as important.
Without maintaining a good wellbeing in the workforce across health and social care the quality of care and support being delivered is at risk.
In the last year alone poor mental health and wellbeing accounted for 30% of staff sickness among council social care staff.
To improve overall wellbeing across every aspect of health and social care it is vital to understand what can cause wellbeing to decline and what the wellbeing principles are so your local authority can have a better understanding of how the principles should be implemented.
Why is wellbeing in health and social care important?
Wellbeing in health and social care is important for many different reasons. One of the main reasons it is important is because it is a carer’s responsibility to look after the care and wellbeing of the individuals they care for, and if carers have poor mental health and wellbeing there is a higher risk the quality of care delivered will decrease.
For example, the lower the mental health and wellbeing of a carer the less likely they will be engaged and satisfied in the job. This in turn can lower the quality of care delivered and increase the risk of health outcomes lowering as a consequence.
The table below demonstrates additional reasons why promoting wellbeing in health and social care is important for end-users and their carers.
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End-users |
Carers |
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Importance of wellbeing in health and social care |
· Improve health outcomes · Enhance quality of life · Encourage increasing independence · Offers more preventative and early intervention measures to delay future care needs · Improves their social engagement in the community · Delivers better person-centred care
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· They deliver a better quality of care · Carers can be more alert increasing client safety · Helps prevent burnout · Improves job satisfaction · Increases productivity and efficiency · Reduces absences · Improves workforce retention · Improve community and public health |
The table above demonstrates how there are of several reasons why being both physically and mentally well is important in health and social care for both end-users and carers themselves.
Ultimately, when carers are both physically and mentally well, they can make more sound and data-led decisions to deliver better care and exhibit empathy towards those they serve to help deliver better proactive care. This in turn helps maintain good mental health and wellbeing for end-users as they are being delivered the care and support, they need when they need it to improve their quality of life. End-users can then experience greater satisfaction and enjoyment in their daily lives which can increase their independence and delay future care needs.
In summary, by promoting wellbeing at the community level within social care more individuals can have healthier and happier lifestyles that are tailored to their specific needs. Not only can this lead to better health outcomes and improve quality of life for individuals, but it also has broader societal benefits including reducing social care costs in the future and it creates stronger and more resilient communities.
Wellbeing in health and social care is important therefore as it represents a holistic co-production approach to care that considers physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects of health and life satisfaction.
Wellbeing Principles – What are they?
Following wellbeing principles are crucial to ensure wellbeing is a central part of the health and social care sector.
Care Act Wellbeing Principles
The Care Act, highlights wellbeing as one of the key responsibilities for care providers as well as prevention and protection. It states that:
“Promoting wellbeing does not mean simply looking at a need that corresponds to a particular service. At the heart of the reformed system will be an assessment and planning process that is a genuine conversation about people’s needs for care and support and how meeting these can help them achieve the outcomes most important to them.”
For this to happen, The Care Act 2014 updated its wellbeing principles to ensure every social care provider was following the same approach. To do this The Care Act breaks this down under the 9 principles of the Care Act which highlights all the areas that wellbeing encompasses:
- Personal dignity – including treatment of the individual with respect
- Physical mental and emotional wellbeing
- Protection from abuse and neglect
- Control by the individual over their day-to-day life (including over care and support provided and the way they are provided)
- Participation in work, education, training, or recreation
- Social and economic wellbeing
- Domestic, family, and personal domains
- Suitability of the individual’s living accommodation
- The individual’s contribution to society
It also states the importance of considering carers and the impact their role has on their wellbeing. It states that even though wellbeing can be a broad concept there is no hierarchy in the areas of wellbeing, each element is equally important to consider and follow.
These wellbeing principles therefore sit as part of the Care Act’s 2014 eligibility criteria to help local authorities ensure they are encompassing all the different key principles to ensure prevention, protection, and wellbeing to get the best outcomes possible.
The Social Services and Wellbeing Act 2016
Similarly, The Social Services and Wellbeing Act 2016 for Wales also highlighted the importance of wellbeing and promoting it within social care. Here this act places a strong emphasis on the wellbeing of individuals who need care and support. The Act highlights that local authorities and their partners have a statutory duty to promote wellbeing. This also includes a duty to involve the individual in decisions about their care and support.
With promoting wellbeing at the heart of legislation for social care, it is vital that your local authority and partners know and understand both how to measure wellbeing and promote it to improve your overall community’s mental health and wellbeing.
Now promoting wellbeing is mandatory for most nations across the UK. Governing bodies will be assessing how well you are delivering your mandatory duties. To receive an outstanding rating in the
upcoming inspections it is vital that your care providers know the different ways wellbeing can be assessed and promoted to improve your community’s overall wellbeing.
How can wellbeing be assessed in health and social care?
Depending on whose wellbeing is being assessed in health and social care there are several different ways to assess it. What is important to note is that when your local authority is assessing wellbeing they should follow a holistic approach that considers the physical, mental, and social aspects of a person’s life.
1. Surveys and Questionnaires
One of the most common ways to assess wellbeing in health and social care for both end-users and carers is to use surveys and questionnaires.
For carers and support workers, questions can include topics such as job satisfaction, work-life balance, stress levels, and overall mental and emotional health so burnout indicators can be set in place to put the right support in place.
Equally for end-users standardised wellbeing assessment tools including the WHO – 5 Wellbeing Index or the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale can be used to ask individuals to rate their overall satisfaction with life, mental health, emotional wellbeing, and how satisfied they feel with their support and treatment.
2. Quality of life measures
Another way wellbeing can be assessed across all of health and social care is through using quality of life measures. This can include analysing the wider social determinants of health that impact someone’s wellbeing such as housing, employment, education, and access to healthcare.
Through using this quality-of-life measure it can be easier to identify if any wider factors are impacting one’s mental health and wellbeing to make sure support is in place to help the individuals.
3. Longitudinal Assessments
A final way wellbeing can be assessed across the whole of health and social care is through using longitudinal assessments. Here wellbeing goals can be set with individuals and carers alike based on their assessments so plans can be established and worked towards.
Changes in wellbeing can then be tracked over time to identify trends and areas of improvement or decline. This in turn can help measure the effectiveness of interventions to ensure both individuals and carers have access to the support they need to prevent both future care needs and burnout in social care.
There are also more specific ways wellbeing can be assessed for carers and individuals separately. The table below shows the different methods that can be used.
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Individuals |
Carers/Support Workers |
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Ways to Assess Wellbeing |
1. Clinical assessments 2. Mental Health assessments 3. Functional assessments 4. Encourage a co-production and collaborative approach 5. Offer continuous feedback and improvement |
1. Offer regular check-ins 2. Performance reviews 3. Observations and feedback 4. Training and education 5. Offer flexible working arrangements 6. Offer wellbeing initiatives |
What is important to remember when assessing wellbeing is that it should be an ongoing process and adjustments might be needed depending on the evolving needs and challenges of both end-users and support workers.
A multi-dimensional and person-centred approach is vital to ensure that every individual and support worker’s needs and preferences are considered when promoting wellbeing.
Promoting wellbeing in health and social care – What are the best ways to do it?
Promoting wellbeing in health and social care involves a holistic approach to improving the physical, mental, and emotional health of individuals.
To promote wellbeing individuals there are various strategies that can be used some include:
- Ensure care is person-centred
- Offer both
- Educate the importance of making better lifestyle choices
- Ensure healthcare is accessible to everyone
- Provide a high-quality continuity of care
- Regularly assess and review individual progress
Similarly, when promoting wellbeing to support workers in health and social care there are also several different strategies to use including:
- Provide information and advice on resources and where to get support
- Provide both emotional and social support
- Educate the importance of making better lifestyle choices
- Provide stress management techniques
- Have wellbeing policies in place
- Celebrate achievements
- Offer more training e.g. time management, cultural competency, professional growth, and emotional resilience
- Encourage the importance of having a good work-life balance
- Reduce the mental health stigma
How can technology help promote wellbeing in health and social care?
Technology has a pivotal role in enhancing social care outcomes for individuals, support workers, and social care providers. To digitally transform processes, social care providers must have clear objectives like improving communication, having better accessibility, having flexible scheduling, and real-time data access, before they start any transformation project. Some examples include:
Telehealth and Telemedicine:
Both telehealth and telemedicine services help to facilitate remote consultations, reduce waiting times, prevent conditions from worsening, and promote wellbeing and reduced stress, anxiety and feelings of being alone and up against it among social care professionals, including care workers and managers.
Technology enabled care:
Technology enabled care, including sensors, smart plugs, wearables, and home hubs help to promote wellbeing by increasing people’s independence and reducing dependency on support workers.
At Access Technology Enabled Care (Access TEC) we are fully upgraded and prepared for the digital telecare switchover so both end-users and support workers can have peace of mind the transition will be smooth and cause minimum disruption.
Our Access Assure Home Hub and app allow smart alerts to be created, ensuring safety and notifying changes in activity before something more critical takes place. We incorporate both traditional reactive alarm functionality and digital insights to reassure end-users, carers, and loved ones of end-user’s wellbeing.
Digital Care Planning Software:
Digital care planning software revolutionises care delivery by automating tasks and ensuring care plans are accurate and person-centred. It improves efficiency by improving communication and real-time access to information. This streamlined approach reduces workloads and stress by mitigating burnout rises whilst ensuring compliance and a sense of security.
Care staff going to a person’s home have all the information they need via their mobile app, including notes from previous care workers. Lots of small features remove many errors that can arise and cause uncertainty and stress, such as gaps in MAR charts or missing information from other visits. Care workers can spend less time finding and recording information and more time providing care, reducing the frantic feeling of racing against time.
Our care planning software is NHS England Assured, and is an easy-to-use all-in-one care planning and management solution that incorporates a mobile app to enable you to deliver high-quality personalised care wherever you are.
Our latest integration with our care planning software and our Assure digital telecare helps provide valuable insights into an individual’s health trends and patterns aiding proactive care management and better data-led decisions to improve care outcomes further.
This integration makes smart alerts and alarm data from the Access Assure Hub visible to care workers in the mobile care planning app as well as allow Access Assure app users full visibility on information about the visit the care worker has completed.
Here seamless communication between caregivers, healthcare professionals, the individual, and the two systems themselves can take place to improve both the coordination of care and its delivery. This, in turn, ensures care services are safe, effective, and high quality through providing real-time updates to give a fuller picture of an individual’s wellbeing before a visit starts. Now better preventative and proactive care can be delivered by identifying issues before they occur.
Supporting Lone Workers:
Technology can also promote wellbeing in health and social care by providing better support to lone workers. Wearable devices, such as Oysta technology can ensure safety for lone workers, providing communication and assistance, as well as boosting productivity whilst ensuring safety.
Our devices are discreet and can pinpoint a lone worker’s location 24/7 by uniquely combining GPS GSM and innovative indoor tracking technologies with a range of alerts and checks to enhance safety and fast provision of assistance.
Supporting individuals living with dementia:
Wearable technology isn’t just beneficial for lone workers it is also beneficial for individuals living with dementia to allow them to live more independently both inside and outside the home. Wearables provide individuals and their loved ones with reassurance that if an individual living with dementia wanders off they can be located quickly through GPS Tracking. This in turn, reduces stress and workloads for all care staff, including managers of services.
At Oysta, we go one step further by connecting the data to our cloud based platform, IntelliCare, to help ARCs and wider care circles to be notified if an individual living with dementia has walked further than their registered safe area or late at night to trigger a welfare check.
Hampshire County Council and their local police force, for example, found there was a 65% reduction in people reported missing to the police once patients with dementia were given an Oysta device to promote independence, provide reassurance, and deliver better preventative care.
Summarising the importance of wellbeing in health and social care
This article has reviewed what wellbeing is in health and social care and why it is important for both individuals and social care and healthcare professionals themselves. I have highlighted the negative impacts of what can happen when wellbeing isn’t taken seriously in the health and social care sector and how outcomes can be reduced, staff burnout can increase, and ultimately many health and social care professionals can leave the profession altogether, making the existing pressures facing the market even worse.
This article has also been able to explain the different legislation there is when promoting wellbeing in health and social care across the UK, including how different governing bodies will assess how wellbeing principles are being delivered in upcoming inspections
Through addressing the challenges facing the health and social care market we have summarisied how technology can play a significant role in promoting wellbeing. I have explained how different technologies and tools can help deliver different goals.
Discover our comprehensive eco system of today to see how at The Access Group we can help social care providers promote wellbeing for both support workers and their clients to improve outcomes and deliver better quality care.
Contact us today and let’s get the ball rolling on promoting wellbeing to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health so everyone involved in the health and social care sector knows there is support available to everyone, whenever and wherever they need it.
