ON THE ANXIETIES OF STAFF AND SUPPORTING EACH OTHER “Everyone was absolutely consumed with COVID and talking about how bad it was, what was the next shift going to bring.” “It was really important to be able to sort of show humility and admit to when I wasn’t feeling okay or when I felt overwhelmed… looking out for each other has become much more embedded in what we do on a day-to-day basis.”
COVID TELLING OUR STORIES
Research tries to make sense and learn from staff experience of the pandemic
A
s the gravity and enormity of the pandemic experience on health staff was emerging, a group of staff from the HSE and an academic researcher from UCD came together to try and make sense of and learn from staff experience of the pandemic. It all started in March 2020 with a call from Dr John Fitzsimons, Paediatrician and Clinical Director for Quality and Patient Safety, for staff to share ideas to help inspire, replenish, and care for each other in the face of the challenges ahead. Early examples of local adaptations and changes in ways of working, and stories of staff putting their values into action, demonstrated how staff were already responding, adapting, and leading with compassion, trust, and bravery to ensure the continued safe delivery of care during the pandemic. The opportunity was identified to capture and understand these examples of excellence and learn from them. HSE staff from Quality & Patient Safety, Values in Action, Staff Engagement and Communications partnered with researchers from University College Dublin to understand the experiences of healthcare staff during this time. “Everything was so uncertain. I picked up my phone and headed down to the beach, I wanted to record a message to my colleagues in the health care worker community. I wanted to ask them to tell their stories to each other and connect because this virus had forced us to interact and deliver care in different ways,” explained Dr Fitzsimons. “I hoped that by seeing each other through our stories, examples and successes, it would give us the strength we would need to persevere, continue to deliver excellent care for the public, show compassion to each other and learn from each other’s extraordinary efforts.”
16 | HEALTH MATTERS WINTER 2021
ON COLLECTIVE WAYS OF WORKING AS A TEAM: “What it certainly showed for our team was the absolute adaptability and flexibility of the team members. As I said, we had to learn new ways of doing things.”
With the aim of representing the hard realities of healthcare delivery in Ireland throughout the pandemic, we wanted to hear stories of change and adaptation, capturing the real human experiences and anxieties of healthcare staff, as well as their many achievements. By doing this, we aim to support the future proofing of health services, and to help inform how we can support staff to drive change that will improve patient and staff experience and quality of care. Through social media and submissions to Health Matters, we reached out to ask people to share their stories of excellence, care, compassion, kindness, trust, leadership, bravery and learning in their work and in their teams. Zuneera Khurshid, a PhD scholar working across the HSE and the UCD team, conducted interviews to gather further information. Based on this work, a number of key findings
