HEALTH MATTERS

DR Ian Hulme, clinical lead for mental health at NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group and GP with Meadowside Medical Centre, Congleton WE joined forces with partners across Cheshire to mark Mental Health Week 2018, which ran from May 14 to 20.

This awareness week gave us the opportunity to talk about mental health issues and agree what more needs to be done to make good mental health a reality for our most important asset, our staff.

We proudly worked with East Cheshire NHS Trust to raise awareness of this and to ensure that we take care of the people who take care of our population.

Organised nationally by the Mental Health Foundation, www. mentalhealth.org.uk, the campaign offered advice on managing stress effectively by following the five ways to wellbeing:

Keep learning. It’s never too late to learn about managing stress.

Give. Be generous of your time in helping those around you.

Be active. It’s important to exercise your body and mind regularly.

Connect. Be interested in those around you. Make constructive use of your time.

Take notice. Appreciate all the good things around you.

The focus was on helping employees and employers create a mentally healthy workplace where everyone feels valued and supported. There is a range of information, guidance and support on how you can achieve this which can be found at www.mind.org.uk.

Activities for our staff included talks on resilience, mindfulness and appreciative enquiry, yoga sessions for beginners, healthy taster pots in the Macclesfield Hospital restaurant, a lunchtime walk and health checks carried out by Everybody Sport and Recreation.

There were also market stalls featuring literature on stress management.

We all know what it’s like to feel stressed – it’s part of everyday life, but when you’re overwhelmed by stress it may lead to mental health problems or make existing problems worse.

NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG is committed to maintaining and improving the mental wellbeing of its staff and wider population alike and one of the ways we’re doing this is through the Talking Therapies service we designed for people with mild to moderate stress, anxiety or depression.

Provided by Macclesfield-based Peaks & Plains Housing Trust, the service is offered in one-to-one or group sessions to promote mental wellbeing by using techniques including mindfulness.

The focus of Talking Therapies is prevention and early intervention, to stop people developing serious mental health problems.