Burnout: a continuing problem

Taking a moment to reflect on the last few months of leading nursing during the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel that, although the response of the NHS was truly one to be proud to be part of, we are all now very tired, and the risk of burnout is high.

Bailey and West (2020), writing for The King's Fund, epitomise the moment for me:

‘Compassionate and collective leadership (individually and institutionally) are core to ensuring staff have the right support.’

They go on to identify that the role of leaders is to truly listen to those they lead, to genuinely strive to understand the challenges they face, to feel with them, to empathise with them, and to take responsibility for helping them deliver the high-quality care they wish to deliver.

Among other opportunities to listen to staff during the pandemic, we have increased the opportunities for clinical supervision. Uptake for this has been good, and feedback has been extremely positive, with a wide skill mix of staff attending sessions. Clinical supervision has needed to be agile and has been accessed by either a digital group session, face-to-face or telephone sessions. To date, staff preference has been for face-to-face clinical supervision using different models and there are several types that can be adapted to suit local environments. With this in mind, we have used an open approach to the support offered and proposed an hour that the individual/team can use to suit their needs.