Considerations post COVID-19

Published 2 Jul 2020
Written by
Professor Neil Greenberg
Academic, Occupational and Forensic Psychiatrist
Reading time
15 mins

Professor Neil Greenberg was lead in developing the staff mental health strategy for the London Nightingale hospital during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

He has written a new comment paper published in the Lancet which follows the London Nightingale (Royal College of Psychiatrists) recovery plan. Read the paper on the Lancet website - How might the NHS protect the mental health of health-care workers after the COVID-19 crisis? 

Neil has also helped develop an evidence-based toolkit to support the mental health of workers who are returning to work. Many, if not all of these tools are transferable to policing and will assist our officers and staff with a potential difficult adjustment back to work. The toolkit can equally be used as a return to work template following an extended period sickness. 

Line managers need to support the mental health of workers returning to the workplace and this toolkit was developed to do just that.

Sustaining work-relevant mental health post COVID-19 toolkit (pdf) 507 KB is published on the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM) website.

Moral injury

Moral injury has been recognised in its own right as affecting healthcare professionals – police officers and staff can also be affected. Moral injury can occur when a person is facing difficult decision making and moral and ethical dilemmas such as during the pandemic and in everyday policing situations. Neil’s work is referenced in both of these papers. Limiting moral injury in healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic is published on the Oxford Academic website.