How Covid-19 surge impacted mental health of NHS staff

A healthcare worker at San Salvatore Hospital in Pesaro, Italy, in March 2020. Almost two-thirds (64%) of intensive care staff may have experienced a mental health disorder during the Covid-19 winter surge last year, according to a new study led by researchers from UCL and King's College London. A similar proportion of staff said their ability to do their job was impaired because of the state of their mental health, researchers found. The peer-reviewed study, published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia , concluded that the prevalence of mental health disorders among intensive care staff was likely to affect patient care and the long-term welfare of staff. For the study, staff at 56 intensive care units in England answered questions designed to assess their mental health and whether their ability to carry out day-to-day tasks was affected. In total, 6,080 survey responses were completed before last year's winter surge (November-December 2020), during the surge (January-February 2021) and after (April-May 2021). The researchers found that during the surge, 64% of respondents met the criteria for having a mental health disorder - encompassing depression, anxiety, harmful use of alcohol and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - while 69% of respondents reported that their ability to carry out daily tasks was impaired by their mental health.