Workforce wellbeing best practice framework


The purpose of this document is to provide a best practice framework to guide commissioners and budget holders, senior hospital management and the intensive care team on ways to provide the best possible employee experience within intensive care. The aim is to support and improve recruitment, retention, job satisfaction, unit culture but also to have an impact on clinical outcomes and patient safety and there is a significant return on investment when employers spend money directly on the mental health of their employee.


Wellbeing is considered a dynamic state in which an individual is able to reach their potential, be productive and creative, build positive relationships and contribute to a wider community and find a sense of purpose. Work has an important role in shaping a person’s overall wellbeing through the interaction of the environment (including the people in that environment), the nature of the work and individual attributes as well as the interaction with life outside of work. Work can have negative effects on psychological wellbeing and work-related stress is defined as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or demands. Burnout is one identified impact and is a psychological syndrome with three key features: depersonalisation, loss of a sense of accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion.


The framework can be summarised in our poster under three headings, primary prevention, secondary intervention and tertiary intervention. 






Assurance and Improvement Tool


This is a tool to enable your intensive care unit to self-assess against the evidence-based, Workforce Wellbeing Best Practice Framework (download above). It is intended to highlight strengths in your unit’s approach to the experience of work and spotlight those areas for further work.


We developed this to enables intensive care units across the UK to self-assess against the Framework. It is intended to highlight strengths in your unit’s approach to the experience of work and spotlight those areas for further development. It translates the Framework as follows:


  • The overarching recommendation (from 1 through to 10).
  • The background and further detail behind each recommendation.
  • The Assurance tool - enables intensive care units to score themselves against tangible factors which represent the overarching recommendation. Score each factor as “Not met”, “Partially met”, or “Fully met” using the drop-down box in the right-hand column. Please note: there is no Assurance tool for recommendation 1 as it relates to a general principle.
  • The Improvement questions - enables intensive care units to evaluate how they are doing against the recommendations and create an action plan for service improvement.
We encourage all units to use the Microsoft Forms version of the tool, but a document version can also be found here.




Workforce Wellbeing Framework Summary

Core Conditions to Thrive at Work Webinar