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Occupational Health and Wellbeing
Our Occupational Health and Wellbeing (OH&W) team provides professional health advice and support to all employees, offering confidential appointments tailored to individual and service needs.
Read our video transcript here
At Humberside Fire and Rescue service, we realise that supporting our people
and making them as healthy
and efficient as possible is just as important as supporting and protecting our communities.
We really try to embed this into service by fully educating all members of staff on
what resources are available to them.
We do this via e learning packages,
but then also face to face presentations,
conference that we run on an annual basis and also wellbeing webinars.
We provide physical, psychological,
and clinical care to every member of staff, and this is done by our health surveillance programmes,
our counselling services, and our fitness and wellbeing programmes.
And we have a dedicated team within service that can offer all of this support.
So as a team, we've really tried to reframe what occupational health
and wellbeing means to us as a service and we've done this by being contactable,
being reachable and providing that care from recruit all the way through to retirement.
We've created a new performance facility
for all members of staff to use which is located in our HQ.
We've got fitness plans and tailored rehabilitation support available to all the members of staff,
which is provided by our fitness management team.
And the list goes on and we are really trying to develop all of infrastructure in the service such
as in Pocklington where we've imputed performance facility
for them utilised so we can keep up with injury rehabilitation,
prehabilitation, and also their physical training,
which all in all will protect our communities in the future.
As part of our blue light pledge, we actively encourage managers,
leaders within the organisation to have these wellbeing discussions with their staff.
This enables staff to have a one to one conversation with a manager
and look at all the care and the support routes that we have in place within the organisation.
So some of the main achievements which we have completed this year is becoming,
Henpicked Menopause Friendly Employer. We're the first in the UK to
be able to say we've got that accreditation,
which is really positive. We're a silver member of the Healthy Workplace Scheme at the minute
and we're striving to get gold.
We've introduced wellbeing breaks for fire staff.
And this has been a really good initiative to try
and increase productivity and efficiency across the service.
And finally, we continue to champion health
and wellbeing initiatives and support for all across our service.
The services they deliver include:
- Service fitness assessments, including wellbeing advice and fitness programmes.
- Health promotion activities and health surveillance.
- Physical and psychological support.
- Access to specialist advice including physiotherapy, counselling and optician assessments.
- Management and self-referrals supporting staff with long term absences.
- Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM).
Referrals: Staff can be referred through a clinical system, with managers able to check staff appointments and health data via a dashboard.
Welfare
As part of our Blue Light Pledge our focus on health and wellbeing, includes a wellbeing discussion and welfare check in the annual personal development review for all staff, as well as the Health and Wellbeing Steering Group, which drives cultural changes to support staff health. The group champions continuous improvement in services, aligned with the National Fire Chief’s Council health and wellbeing framework.
We offer high-quality support for staff and their families, including an externally sourced Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). Our Critical Incident Stress Management team provides support after traumatic events, and we are the first UK fire and rescue service to be Henpicked Menopause accredited, offering education and awareness sessions. We have also expanded our menopause and menstrual health policy, initially launched in 2019.
Mental health support has been strengthened with the development of wellbeing ambassadors and a workplace wellbeing manager. All staff have access to resources and guidance through the internal OH&W portal. Our OH&W team is committed to delivering health and wellbeing training, and we have achieved silver level in the Healthy Workplace Award Scheme, working towards the gold award.