Royal College of Nursing: Stress reduction project

W hen I joined the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the UK’s largest professional union for nursing, in 2008, the healthcare sector was embarking on unprecedented levels of change. The RCN itself was also under pressure to modernise and become more focused on performance. Just how much pressure this was putting on our 800 staff became apparent when our annual stress audit clearly showed that staff felt stressed and anxious and felt they had no assistance above and beyond that provided by local managers. We were staggered to learn that 95 per cent of self-referral requests being made to our occupational health provider were for emotional counselling.