So you think YOU have problems?

NHS staff were recently analysed by a government report concerning their own health problems. It reported that over the past five years, 41% of pharmacists suffered due stress-related health problems. It also added that 60% of these would be unhappy about admitting to a mental health problem due to the associated stigma. This, along with other findings, has led the DoH to develop a framework which will deliver healthcare specifically for the NHS workforce, tailored to their specific needs.

In these days of global public satisfaction, I doubt that Joe Public will be happy to know that those who are meant to be delivering his health services actually need their own, specialised health service to deal with their own health problems? and the service he is receiving, apparently isn’t good enough for the people giving it?

I find it hard to understand why people that work for the NHS should receive any more specialised care than those who work for Boots or Lloyds, or even GSK! Pharmacists, and people in most lines of work get stressed, even students (May is just around the corner kids!) The DoH is sending out the wrong message. It is effectively saying that the service provided by the NHS isn’t good enough for the workforce of the NHS, so they’re going to make a separate NHS just for NHS workers, which will be better and more specialised than the actual NHS is! Confusing. In layman’s terms: the NHS everyone else uses isn’t good enough for NHS workers.