Pastoral Care
BMA Wellbeing Support Service
The BMA Wellbeing Support Service is confidential, free of charge and open to all doctors and medical students. Call 0330 123 1245 and you will have the choice of speaking to a counsellor or taking the details of a doctor who you can contact for peer support.
‘Help Me I’m A Doctor’ Portal
Medical Charities’ Portal launched to highlight financial help available to struggling doctors
We are a group of five medical charities that all offer financial assistance to doctors, as well as dependant members of their family. Our mission is to reach out to every doctor in the UK and make them aware that there is confidential help for doctors who are struggling.
With support from NHS England, we have worked together to launch the ‘Help me, I’m a Doctor’ Portal, which acts as a single access point for doctors searching for financial help. It will also be a useful sign-posting tool for colleagues and organisations who may be trying to help a doctor access support.
In 2016 the five charities supported doctors, and their dependent families, with charitable grants and loans totalling over £1.3 million.
Doctors all too often experience loneliness and isolation, even though working in an extremely busy, stressful work place – whether a hospital or practice setting. Dedicating their time to helping others, while putting their own needs to one side, doctors can often find it difficult to admit they have a problem, to their colleagues or even to their own family. Often they are concerned that admitting they have a problem will impact upon their Fitness to Practice.
The Portal will offer an effective way to attract those who are in distress and have a real need for financial help and money advice.
There has been a lack of knowledge about the differences between each of the charities and how they operate. By completing a very simple questionnaire on the Portal, the result will highlight which of the charities may be able to offer financial help.
The ‘Help me, I’m a Doctor’ Portal will also signpost doctors to other confidential support, including the new GP Health Service.
Please help us spread the word about the Portal and the financial help available?
All applications are considered in confidence.
www.doctorshelp.org.uk
For further information email: mary@cameronfund.org.uk
GP Health Service
The NHS GP Health Service is a confidential NHS service for GPs and GP trainees in England.
http://gphealth.nhs.uk/
The GP Health Service can help with issues relating to a mental health concern, including stress or depression, or an addiction problem, in particular where these might affect work.
The NHS GP Health Service is a confidential NHS service for GPs and GP trainees in England.
The GP Health Service can help doctors with issues relating to a mental health concern, including stress or depression, or an addiction problem, in particular where these might affect work.
GPH is not a service for individuals with mental health problems which require specialist psychiatric input though we can help provide additional support where we can.
If you think that you have a mental health problem that requires this level of specialist help you must contact your GP to seek help.
GPH is provided by health professionals who have additional expertise in addressing the issues concerning doctors. These clinicians are available in various locations across England. NHSE (our commissioners) require that we are able to offer a clinical assessment within one to two hours travelling time.
Access the service by emailing us on gp.health@nhs.net or by calling 0300 0303 300. The service is available 8am – 8pm Monday – Friday and 8am – 2pm Saturday.
Please note the service is not for emergency or crisis issues. These should be directed to mainstream NHS.
Not a GP? Then telephone 020 3049 4505 or email us at england.phpadmin@nhs.net to enquire whether the Practitioner Health Programme can help you under one of their other NHS contracts. Further information is available on the website www.php.nhs.uk