Our EAP: Brigitte Kaviani, Programme Director – People Experience, South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
Our EAP: Brigitte Kaviani, Programme Director – People Experience, South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
Many other Integrated Care Boards in the UK have needed to stop their funding for an EAP — because of the idea that now the pandemic over, staff don’t need the support. But that’s obviously far from being the case.
In 2021 we commissioned a universal EAP service for the entire South Yorkshire Integrated Care System — we wanted to offer consistency of support around wellbeing, what would be the foundation to a culture of care for employees involved in delivering health services. Our EAP is available to more than 72,000 staff working not only in the Integrated Care Board but across the clinical commissioning groups in our region, the hospital trusts and primary care services, but also the health students in teaching hospitals and universities, local authorities, employees in care homes, hospices and the voluntary sector in neighbourhoods in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw.
Some organisations might already have had access to an EAP, but with our new large-scale arrangement we were able to offer a way to bypass long waiting lists, a concerted programme of activities, 24/7 access to helplines and resources, and more immediate access to counselling (face-to-face, telephone or by video call) — a guaranteed six sessions that can start within seven to 10 days, with some employers in the System funding further sessions as needed.
It’s an amazing set of free services to staff. And as a Board we’ve found this to be a cost-effective way to provide a holistic wellbeing support service. On average we find around 250 people a month access the counselling offering, with many more taking advantage of the library of resources available.
Critically, we work closely with a Client Success Manager — the same person since the start of the contract, so they know the organisation and how it works — to help develop better forms of reporting. We have a set of monthly reports and annual reports on EAP usage, one for the whole ICS as well as by each employer sector, so we can see the trends in terms of usage: why the EAP is being used and when; along with the demographics of users.
This valuable data has been used along with staff surveys to inform our three-year health and wellbeing strategy from April 2024; to shape a series of evening events with speakers giving advice on the issues that were found to be the most common, so issues like stress and anxiety; and to target promotions and awareness campaigns around particular forms of support. The data is also important for demonstrating usage, the issues and the need for ongoing funding. One useful indicator of the quality of the support on offer has been the lack of any genuine complaints in the past three years of running the offering.
The EAP has been the focus for a wider package of support: short courses on mental health awareness, or more tailored for particular staff groups, such as a course on how to have difficult conversations for GP receptionists. Webinar resources have been developed to meet needs as they have been identified, forming a library of content for the ICS, such as dealing with anxiety, burnout, trauma, SAD. A particular example would be the interest in advice around work and the menopause, where a particular support service was developed and piloted from September 2023 and went live in April 2024 as part of the annual offer. A hugely valuable part of the EAP service is the wraparound of support, before, after and during counselling. People are looked after. The EAP stays in contact with staff who call in, they check-in ahead of any counselling and signpost to the resources they can access in the meantime.