support, value and grow our incredible people.
With flexible working, wellbeing support, career progression and staff recognition, we’re helping our people feel appreciated and motivated to flourish at Barts Health.
That’s why wellbeing, balance, and flexibility are central to how we work.
Including leisure and entertainment discounts, and time off when you need it most
Barts Health was named Best Employer for Staff Recognition and Engagement at the prestigious 2024 Nursing Times Workforce Awards.
Since its launch in February 2024, over 93,000 hearts have been sent through the platform.
Once a staff member collects five 'hearts', they can exchange them for a reward, adding an extra layer of appreciation.
A recent survey revealed that 55% of staff feel more recognised for their contributions, underlining the platform’s positive impact on engagement, satisfaction, and workplace culture.
Anyone in the Barts Health family - staff, volunteers, or partner colleagues - can be nominated.
These special awards recognise those who have reached 15, 25, or 40 years of continuous service at Barts Health.
We support our volunteers across the Trust as well as hosting a heartfelt thank-you event for our incredible volunteers. This celebration acknowledges their vital role in supporting patients, families, and staff across the Trust.
In addition, we:
These initiatives demonstrate our dedication to creating a culture of recognition, appreciation, and belonging across Barts Health.
We work in partnership with London theatres and venues to secure heavily discounted – sometimes free – tickets for theatre, concerts and events.
Throughout the year we also run discounted mini-breaks and there are holiday and daytrip discounts available staff, their friends and families.
Concerts for Carers offer free tickets to events for all NHS staff. Pick your event, enter the ballot and you might get lucky!
Buying an annual season ticket works out much cheaper then monthly or weekly tickets. We will lend you the money for an annual ticket and deduct it from your salary each month.
Simplyhealth work in partnership with us to offer a health cash plan at reduced rates. This helps you to budget for optical, dental, complementary therapy and even prescription charges for you and your family from only £3.10 a week.
From tablets to washing machines, the salary sacrifice allows you to buy electrical items through your salary and pay them off over a set period of time. You can also lease a brand new car, fully maintained and insured, in the same way.
Health Service Benefits offers free membership and provides exclusive discounts for all NHS staff from local and national high street companies such as Ticketmaster, Halfords, Halifax and Vision Express. Register for free.
Blue Light Card provides those in the NHS, emergency services, social care sector and armed forces with discounts online and in-store.
As healthcare workers, we tend to know that people need to eat better, be more active, stop smoking and consider their drinking. However, responses to lifestyle questions in the annual staff survey show that we also struggle with making healthier lifestyle choices, mirroring the national position, and would welcome support in getting healthier.
Here are some of the ways in which we can help.
Take a moment to consider your health and the simple steps you can take to improve it by taking part in the Public Health England's One You online quiz. The quiz, entitled 'How are you?', takes your lifestyle information, gives you a health score and then links to free localised, personalisable information, apps and tools.
Our occupational health team offer health assessments to all staff.
We are a smoke free trust. If you would like help to stop smoking you can self-refer to the stop smoking service by completing the application form.
The stop smoking service will contact you in approx. four working days. When entering the postcode you can use your workplace or home postcode – whichever is most convenient.
Alternatively, we have some on site clinics for patients and staff:
Stopping smoking can increase your life expectancy by as much as 10 years; it can also make you wealthier. A person who smokes 20 cigarettes a day can save around £3,000 after one year of remaining smoke free.
For more information see the smoking cessation page.
Action for happiness
We all want to lead a happy life and want the people we love to be happy too. But as a society we are not giving this enough priority.Despite decades of economic growth we are no happier now than we were sixty years ago. We need to re-think our priorities.
The good news is that our actions and choices can affect our happiness. What makes us happy has less to do with our money or possessions and more to do with our attitudes and relationships with other people.
Action for Happiness is a movement of people from all walks of life who are taking action in their personal lives, communities, workplaces and schools to help create a happier and more caring society.
We help people learn practical ways to increase their well-being and make others happier too, all based on the latest scientific evidence of what really works. You can start with our 10 key points to living a happier life [pdf] 308KB or visit the action for happiness website
Our Psychological Support Service was launched in 2021 to help support Barts Health staff with their mental health and wellbeing.
Funded by Barts Charity, the service is a part of the wellbeing offer for staff across all hospitals and sites. Working with Barts people either one-to-one or in groups or teams, the confidential service is available to complete short-term pieces of psychology work, aimed at improving staff experience and psychological safety.
For confidential advice from someone outside our organisation, you can call our Employee Assistance Programme on 0800 085 1376 at any time.
Trained Dignity at Work Advocates are available to help provide advice, and to resolve any issues you experience at an early stage.
SpeakInConfidence is an online system that provides a way for you to anonymously and directly raise ideas and concerns with our senior leadership, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The web-based service is run by a third party and allows anyone to send an anonymous message to any of our executive leaders.
The Guardian Service is a safe and independent route for you to raise issues or concerns that affect you, the safety of our patients or your ability to do your job well. It offers an opportunity to talk through the issue before it is raised formally, get support and work to see if a resolution can be found.
It can be anonymous, and any concerns can remain confidential unless you agree for it to be raised with the relevant people within the organisation.
The welfare and wellbeing of our staff is a key priority.
Thanks to the support of Barts Charity, we have invested millions of pounds in improved facilities including:
Each of our sites also has a wellbeing lead and a network of wellbeing prescribers to help you navigate the support on offer.
Art therapy is another way we support the mental health and wellbeing of our staff, reducing stress and burnout and helping people feel more connected to colleagues.
In partnership with Queen Mary University of London, we have helped research the impact of group art therapy sessions for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. The sessions are led by trained psychological professionals and offer protected time away from busy shifts to pause, reflect and express feelings in a safe and supportive space.
“It gives us time to pause, to remember we are human again and to express our feelings through art.” – Dr Umur Guven
Art therapy is now available to staff across Barts Health hospitals and forms part of our wider commitment to staff wellbeing and mental health at work.
