The London Ambulance Charity and London Ambulance Service’s Wellbeing Team have partnered to enhance well-being support for frontline crews after difficult incidents. .

Thanks to a £50,000 grant from NHS Charities Together and NHS England, we are able to deliver a training program – called project Beyond STOP – that uses clinical psychologists to help paramedics and call handlers on the frontline who have experienced trauma.

“We’re incredibly proud to be offering this support for our frontline crews at London Ambulance while they work round the clock to look after Londoners in their moment of need.

“Designed especially for LAS, the sessions are led by a clinical psychologist and focus on helping leaders run meaningful debriefs after challenging incidents.

“The aim is simple: to create space not just to learn what happened, but also to support how people feel after the job is done.”

• Jess Burgess, Head of London Ambulance Charity

LAS’s Wellbeing Hub provides several proactive, evidence-based well-being initiatives and support for staff which are meaningful and impactful for our teams.

Further to the services already provided to LAS, the Workforce Wellbeing Grant will fund a further evidence-based project called Beyond STOP: Advanced Clinical Debriefing skills and strategies.

Beyond STOP enhances this debriefing process by improving access to mental health support. It will ensure managers are be equipped with the insight, language and strategies needed to lead debriefs that support clinical learning and emotional resilience for their crews.  

To date, the first phase of the project has been completed, with positive feedback from participants including:

“I appreciated the practical tips and really well explained system of how to improve my debriefs. Excellent.”

“The trainer’s expertise and knowledge meant the training was bespoke to us.”

“I enjoyed the interaction with other managers openly discussing each area, and ideas to take away and specifically to improve self-resilience and team resilience.”

Following this, phase two of the project is set to begin in the coming weeks, which will see internal senior colleagues can offer continued support for colleagues’ emotional wellbeing.