Caring for the mental health of the medical workforce: Best Practices

This report marks the first stage of the project and provides a summary of findings from a large-scale survey of both doctors and medical students. The survey, which was open to BMA members and non-members across the UK from 10 to 31 October 2018, received over 4,300 responses including around 1,400 medical students. The survey provides a quantitative overview of experiences and attitudes to mental health and offers a starting point for the next stage of our project which is a more in-depth qualitative study.

Best Practices

• Building a supportive culture - Valuing the workforce, preventing the cause of ill-health, raising mental health awareness, using innovation, and offering support are all means to improve in this area.
• Enhancing access to support - Improving awareness of services, meeting service user needs, and providing spaces to rest can improve this area.  
• Encouraging self-care and peer support - Valuing and maintaining one's mental health, and offering support to colleagues can improve this area.  

The full article can be downloaded below.