‘We have to help the people who help us’
Ahead of the NHS Heroes Awards on TV tonight, one ambulance serviceman tells Rosa Silverman about coming to terms with trauma
Dan Farnworth had been working for the ambulance service for more than a decade when he responded to a call-out that would change his life. The incident he attended on that fateful day three years ago, involved a victim of child abuse. Although he and his colleagues did all they could, the infant could not be saved.
Farnworth, 32, a father of four children aged between three and 13, knew as soon as he arrived at the scene that this job was different to any he had done before; that it would leave an indelible mark. He didn’t know then quite how deep the trauma would be.
“That night, I struggled to sleep and I knew it was going to be a difficult thing to deal with,” he says, looking back. “After two or three days, I was having cold sweats and flashbacks and found myself staring at the wall, thinking about it. It was a scary place to be, but I didn’t want to admit something was wrong. I thought, ‘How can I say I’ve got a mental health problem when I’m there to help others?’ ”
Farnworth’s own children were a similar age to the victim at the time, and he could not shake from his head the image of the child who had died, or stop wondering if there was more he could have done.
Not knowing where to turn, Farnworth, who works for North West Ambulance Service as an emergency medical technician, felt his mental state deteriorating further as the days passed.
“Time went by, and it felt like I was at the bottom of a deep, dark hole,” he says. “I couldn’t get out. I was having nightmares, was withdrawn at work and wasn’t really being a nice person at home. I was getting worse day by day, and I realised I needed to talk to someone, but didn’t know who.”
Eventually, he nervously typed a text message to a colleague with whom he was friendly, a paramedic called Richard Morton, and confessed he was struggling. “I deleted the message, rewrote it, finally sent it, and then turned my phone off because I was too scared to see what he’d say,” he says.
When Morton replied, it was to say he was on his way round and to tell Farnworth to put the kettle on. “I felt a bit better because I’d shared the problem and admitted I needed help,” says Farnworth. Following his admission, he took four months off work and received some much-needed counselling and support for what turned out to be the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he was suffering. As he began to feel better, he understood what it was that had stopped him initially from speaking up about what he was going through. “I realised the biggest problem preventing me accessing support was the stigma,” he says. “I was scared to talk about [how I felt] because I worked for the NHS and my job was to help others.”
So he and Morton decided to act. Together, in 2016, they established a network called Our Blue Light, with the aim of improving the mental health, wellbeing and working life of emergency service workers. Last week, they were rewarded for their efforts with the Mental Health Champion prize at the NHS Heroes Awards, which is televised tonight, an honour they describe as “fantastic”.
Delivering a message via video at last Monday’s ceremony, the Duke of Cambridge said: “Perhaps the most wonderful thing about the NHS is its people. The skill, care and dedication they provide every day is truly inspirational.”
But these words hint at an often hidden problem: so focused are we on the care given by those on the front line, we can easily forget that these same people must be taken care of, too. Our Blue Light, which helps not only those working in the police, fire and ambulance services, but also those in probation and prison services, emerged in recognition of this.
By the very nature of their jobs, those employed in our “blue light” services are frequently exposed to situations that are traumatic, distressing and difficult. From battling to save a dying child in a domestic incident to acting as first responders when a terror attack is perpetrated, the range of upsetting scenarios they face cannot be overstated.
“Many sad things happen day-in and day-out, and death is, sadly, a daily occurrence,” says Farnworth. “There is that expectation that [emergency services staff ] are some kind of superbeings, but they’re not, and we have to help the people who help us.”
It was not until he shared his own experience, however, that he realised the scale of the problem. Farnworth wrote a blog post on social media, recounting frankly what he had been through. From there, the floodgates opened.
“I had an overwhelming number of people contacting me and opening up to me about their own stories,” he says.
The statistics, meanwhile, are stark. According to research by the mental health charity Mind, in 2016, more than one in four people (27 per cent) had contemplated taking their own lives due to stress and poor mental health while working for the emergency services, while nearly two thirds (63 per cent) had considered leaving their job or voluntary role due to stress or poor mental health.
The charity’s online survey of more than 1,600 staff and volunteers from police, fire, ambulance, and search and rescue services also showed that 92 per cent of respondents had experienced stress, low mood and poor mental health at some point while working for the emergency services. And 62 per cent said they had experienced a mental health problem such as depression, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia while working or volunteering in their current or previous blue light role. Tellingly, however, fewer than half had taken time off work due to stress, low mood or poor mental health.
Through its own programme, Mind has helped increase support and awareness, something Our Blue Light hopes to take further. Farnworth is based in Blackpool, and the network he and Morton have established currently covers the north of England, with plans to expand across the south. They are also applying for charity status. So far, the pair have run four network events, uniting staff from multiple services to consider common problems and how people can best be supported, besides various other awareness-raising activities.
“It’s important everyone knows first aid these days, but we don’t teach mental health first aid,” says Farnworth. “It’s important we know how to support people and what to do when someone comes to you for help. I think sometimes we have a stiff upper lip in the emergency services. For quite some time, it was a case of, ‘Get on with it, you’ll be fine.’ Thankfully, that’s changing. We are starting to talk to each other.”
As for his own mental health, he has learnt how to cope, if not banish the demons altogether.
“I think I will always have PTSD,” he says. “However, I can deal with it now. I can manage it well. It’s made me a stronger person. The most important thing is, I don’t see it as PTSD any more – I like to call it post-traumatic resilience.”
The NHS Heroes Awards is on ITV tonight at 8.30pm
‘I was in a hole. I needed to talk to someone, but didn’t know who’