Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing NSW Ambulance Staff Psychology Service

NSW Ambulance

Team: Kimin Lim

NSW Ambulance has developed a first-of-a-kind NSW Emergency Services, internal staff psychology service. This service reflects that NSW Ambulance is committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of its employees and offers a range of staff support initiatives to help achieve positive mental health and wellbeing. Establishing the NSW Ambulance staff psychology service in 2018 has led to the growth of a strong and trusted team of experts within the organisation’s broader support initiatives.

The staff psychology service provides high quality, evidence-based psychological services and programs to all staff. The organisation’s psychology activities, services and programs aim to help staff optimise their wellbeing, manage mental health risks, identify signs of mental ill health and access best practice intervention.

The staff psychology service has doubled from a team of five to ten internal senior staff psychologists and one chief psychologist. These clinicians are uniquely placed to offer a decentralised model of support which is integrated into how we care for our people. Services include employee counselling, post incident support, wellness checks and advice on employee support.

In 2021/22 the service offered care to 1043 employees referred for psychological support and 597 referrals for trauma support. This builds on strong patronage through the service’s early years. From 2018 to June 2021 the service managed 4358 referrals for individual employee and trauma support, delivering 20,563 support activities. This included 2582 referrals for employee support and 1776 referrals for individual trauma support. In this time the service completed 1467 outreach and promotional activities for staff working across more than 220 sites around NSW.