Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing

SA Ambulance Service

Peer Support COVID-19 response

SA Ambulance Service

Team: Megan Walkley

Supporting all staff in their physical and psychological health has been a fundamental principle of the SA Ambulance Service (SAAS) Peer Support, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and physical health programs since their inception. The negative effects of COVID-19 upon wellbeing have been broadly documented throughout the pandemic, which informed our organisational direction to proactively tailor the already available support and services provided to our people.

Staff mental health and wellbeing became a core focus of our organisational response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID positive or close contact staff members were supported through the delivery of extensive proactive welfare checks, developing and distributing staff quarantine care packs and providing regular updates and advice through internal communications.

SAAS included Staff Wellbeing as a functional role within its COVID-19 Incident Management Team (IMT), strengthening, enhancing and adapting staff mental health and physical wellbeing services to meet the varied challenges created by the pandemic.

Ongoing collaboration between our Staff Wellness and Assistance (SWA) team, our EAP provider and the IMT also ensured a wellbeing lense was cast on all decision making, enabling the welfare of our people to remain at the core of everything we undertook.

The SAAS mental health and wellbeing response for our staff throughout COVID-19 has been unprecedented, totalling in excess of 3,700 contacts, 342 hours of contact time and the delivery of over 1600 staff welfare packs