Supporting bereaved healthcare workers.

by Jules Lewis RGN MSc

My name is Jules Lewis and I am a Swan End of Life Care Lead Nurse at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust and PhD Student at Staffordshire University. I am also bereaved by suicide, my beautiful best friend Janet took her own life in February 2019 aged 47, a caring and compassionate friend and nurse for over 20 years.

I set up, with the support from our lead volunteer & our administrator, a staff bereavement support service at the hospital where I work. This intervention includes 1-2-1 support sessions, a safe space to be heard, with compassion, kindness, understanding, support and signposting to other support services as required.

Funding for this service was gained from Health Education England following a successful business case application. This money is used to backfill my hours to allow me to do this work for a few hours per week, and to cover the cost of room bookings to ensure we have a safe space to support staff. We are lucky enough to have a perfect venue on the hospital site but not in the main building. 

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Bereavement support cafes.

We also offer an ongoing peer support group, in the form of staff bereavement support cafes, these run every few months throughout the year.  This support is for all bereaved staff who work at the hospital, it is to support staff with personal bereavement or professional deaths (the death of a person they cared for). This can range from expected, unexpected, traumatic & bereaved by suicide. I am currently supporting several staff who have been bereaved by suicide.

“It has proved more valuable than I ever thought. Just to have the space and time to process and talk about my feelings following my bereavement I have found incredibly helpful.”

Bereavement café attendee    

At the December café each year we have a tree of hope where staff who attend the café and others can write a bereavement memory tag and place it on the tree in memory of their loved one. It remains in our conference centre for several weeks over the Christmas and New Year period.

“Having a safe, secure and confidential person to speak with has really helped me work through some of the difficulties of my recent bereavement.”

Bereavement café attendee

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The aim of my PhD pilot project is to evaluate the effect a bereavement intervention has on healthcare staff’s health and wellbeing.

In addition to our bereavement support we have also set up a walk and talk session, available to all staff, once a month at lunchtime. On a 20–30 minute walk we offer a listening ear and kindness. Signposting to further support as appropriate and required. We aim to encourage staff to get into nature and boost their health and wellbeing.

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Poetry.

I’d like to share two poems by my friend Brendon Feeley. We gift the first beautiful poem – ‘No Judgement Here’ to staff at our bereavement cafes.

Jules Lewis and Brendan Feeley

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No Judgement Here

This is a safe environment.

There is nothing for you to fear.

There is no need to worry.

There is no judgement here.

If you feel you need a friend,

reach out and you will find

this world can be incredible,

with people caring and kind.     

By Brendon Feeley

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This 2nd poem is one that I hope will give nurses and others the hope to get help and support for the future.

Not Today

When the darkness falls around you

and the light has all but gone,

it’s then that you dig deepest

for the strength to carry on.

With the biggest smile you can muster,

stare into the darkness and say,

I’ve bested darker days than this,

and you won’t win today. 

By Brendon Feeley

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Thank you for reading this blog, we hope it makes a difference at the hardest of times.

Best wishes,

Jules and Brendon.

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On the death of a colleague.

by Leah Hosie RMN

Working with individuals who experience suicidal ideation or intent is an integral aspect of mental health, and it is probable that all registered nurses working in this field will come across a person in this situation at some point, irrespective of the specific area in which they develop their career.

As an RMN working in a crisis resolution team, this was a common concern. Whether borne out of situational crisis, a deterioration in a mental health condition, or any other number of contributing factors, a thread to the narrative of these service users was a sense of feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. Initially, when doing my risk assessments and asking people what had got them to this point, this decision, I would tread carefully with my language, use euphemisms and metaphors and be so tentative as to be ineffectual.

But my nursing skills developed, and my confidence grew. Towards the end of my clinical career, I was able to say to a service user ‘Death comes to us all, why rush that process?’ and feel competent that I could manage the response, whatever it might be. I became skilled at navigating emotions and attuned to subtle shifts in body language, I know when to speak and when to remain silent. I took professional pride in my ability to assess risk and provide something of use to that person based on their need at that precise moment.

A colleague suicide.

And then I had a colleague and friend end her life. Suddenly, abruptly, without warning. She was a fellow mental health nurse, and we had worked together on the crisis team before parting ways when this service was disbanded. We stayed connected though, largely through messaging and social media. A few weeks before her death, we had spent an evening talking about her desire to explore other avenues of nursing, and perhaps consider health visiting.

For all my skill, for all my competence, for all my confidence – I never saw this coming. I had never envisioned it, never thought or felt for a second that she was at any risk. I was devastated. All my crisis team colleagues were… What could we have said? What could we have done? How did we not know?! What did we miss?

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Practice what we preach.

I do not understand why she didn’t reach out for help, but I wonder if it was because as mental health nurses, there is the expectation that we have our sh*t together so that we are able to help others. So, what then happens to those of us that are also struggling, overwhelmed or hopeless? How easy is it for us to practice what we preach? To reach out for support from the mental health professionals in our lives? Even if we work alongside them, rather than in a patient-provider capacity.

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Reach out.

I would like to be able to write this blog post as a nurse who has gone through this experience and be able to say here is what I would do differently… but I cannot. I do not know. I do not know what went wrong, and I don’t know how (or if) I could have helped. Heaven knows I have contemplated this for hours, but I am none the wiser.

So instead, I write this blog as a person who grieves and who may never get the answers. But as for you, dear reader, if you see something of yourself in my friend and colleague’s story, please, please, please, do not suffer alone. Do not suffer in silence. There are barriers thrown up in life and there can be days, weeks, months or longer when it is all just too much. But with love and support might come the option to break those barriers down, to master that which overwhelms us. Professionally, I have witnessed remarkable transformations when people in need engage with that support. And personally, I have been devastated by the effects when people do not.

Please ask for help if you are in need. Please.

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If you are experiencing distress or suicidal thoughts, please take a look at our support page.

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