DUTY TO CARE: Meet The Founders
Annabel Harrison
We meet the team that turned the idea for Duty To Care – a platform providing online mental health and wellbeing support for all NHS workers – into reality in a matter of weeks. Why now, and what’s next?
Every Thursday we clap for the people who are caring for us during this pandemic, but who is caring for them? Duty To Care founders Harriet Hunt, Sadie Reid and Will Engert – working in public relations, health and wellness, and finance respectively – explain why and how Duty To Care was launched in March 2020.
Left to Right: Harriet Hunt, Sadie Reid & Will Engert
What galvanised you into setting up Duty To Care, Harriet?
Ever since my husband qualified as a doctor, I’ve seen how much pressure he and his colleagues are under on a daily basis, even at the best of times. He found support when he was struggling, turning to CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy], mindfulness and meditation, which showed me how much an individual can benefit from the right mix of treatments.
Although setting up an initiative like Duty To Care is something I have wanted to do for a while, I took action when I started to understand the severity of this pandemic. Everyone in the medical world felt like a huge onslaught was about to hit them. It wasn’t just when my husband was at work; at home What’s App messages and questions kept coming. I felt that surely the priority should be looking after them – all anyone was talking about was their own safety, how they’d get through staying at home, and stockpiling loo roll. It was baffling to me that there was nothing about the mental health of the NHS workforce. And that drove me to set up Duty To Care.
Sadie and Will, how did you get involved?
Sadie: Hattie knew, from her husband, that NHS staff were getting incredibly worried about the tsunami that was about to hit, but it seemed like nothing was being done to support them. She messaged me about her idea for Duty To Care and I called back immediately. I have a very good network of holistic therapists so I could help build a website with a directory of practitioners and get it all off the ground. I want the NHS staff to be the best they can, firstly for themselves but also for their patients, so Duty To Care seemed like a no brainer.
Will: Hattie and Sadie, who had been at school with my wife, needed someone with a financial and legal background to help set up Duty To Care. I’m an accountant and finance director by day and it seemed like a really good project to get involved in. I’ve had CBT myself – at one point I had a blog trying to convince other guys to do it, and talk about it if they need, and take the stigma away. I’ve always been interested in the mental wellbeing of others, and I didn’t realise the extent of the challenges in the medical profession, and the anxiety, depression and suicide rates.
What types of practitioners did you think were needed, and what response did you get?
Sadie: A resounding yes – we now have more than 700 therapists signed up! We wanted to feature breadth as a priority, because we all respond to different things in different ways, and some people need treatments in combination. So we have yoga, personal training, mindfulness, breathwork, life coaching, CBT and a range of psychotherapy counsellors, each with their own unique speciality, from sleep to anxiety. In the months after launch we are expanding the range of therapies currently offered. I’m already knowledgeable about things like CBT but I’m learning lots about the psychological support therapies that the NHS workers are going to need to help them get through this.
Is there support already out there for NHS workers? Has Covid-19 has increased their need for mental health and wellbeing support?
Harriet: Yes, there absolutely are existing avenues of support for NHS staff but we are living in unprecedented times. We want to be part of the solution to a problem that has suddenly just ballooned in size, and to offer the broadest, most accessible service possible. Through personal experience, I have seen that there is not always enough readily available support – across wellbeing in addition to mental health – that can be accessed as soon as it’s needed. We want to ensure that people who work in the NHS realise how much they deserve this support, now and beyond the pandemic.
Are NHS workers already accessing help via Duty To Care, and what’s the feedback?
Harriet: Yes they are. It’s available to any worker with an NHS email address; we had hundreds sign up in the first week from NHS Trusts based all over the country, from doctors and nurses to hospice workers and paramedics. The feedback so far is that the sessions are so beneficial, and really convenient. Because it’s all online, it can be fitted in around long hours and shift work, and people who haven’t addressed their mental health before can get help at the click of a button, in private, without having to summon up courage to physically go for a treatment.
Sadie: Prior to COVID-19 we were already seeing an uptake in people doing things online, because everyone is so busy. Now we all have to stay at home, which is forcing us to use alternative ways of getting support, and many of these treatments do translate online easily. One of the biggest advantages for NHS staff is no travel time – it’s easy, and can be flexible.
How did you kick-start the fundraising efforts?
Harriet: We worked with bloggers as part of growing our presence on social media. Fleur de Force pulled together an amazing group of bloggers who donated items from their wardrobes for an auction that raised £20,000 – that’s what got us going. We reached out to our own networks and word spread really organically; everyone seems to relate to what we’re doing and sees it as a logical thing to do. We did a fun social media challenge over Easter too, asking people to do headstands or handstands, and lots of people got involved.
Will: It’s easy to appeal to the public on this now. The challenge going forward will be the sustainability of our fundraising efforts, and Duty To Care’s legacy. That’s something we’re trying to plan for now. The model has to be sustainable – we want to embed ourselves with the right kind of corporates and work really closely with the NHS and British Medical Association and other relevant bodies. We are keen to be complementary to what exists already – and if people need more serious help, we’re not taking them out of that system – but as long as the help is needed, we have a place.
What do you hope will happen post pandemic in terms of attitudes towards the NHS?
Harriet: I hope people don’t ever take it for granted and continue to realise how lucky we are to have these people looking after us. The aim is for Duty To Care to carry on indefinitely, now that people realise the impact of the pressure on the NHS, and the self-care that is needed to keep its workers healthy.
Sadie: I do think people are going to take more of an interest in their own health and wellbeing, and that the mental effects of the pandemic, both for the NHS staff and the rest of us, will take their toll. I don’t know many people on their own but it’s incredibly difficult for those who are, and it’s tough on relationships. Support for our mental health will be needed; staff in the NHS may be anxious about something like this happening again. I have always felt a huge amount of gratitude to the NHS, especially after having given birth, but it often does take something like a birth or a crisis to make us realise how grateful we are. What I’d like to see is gratitude for the NHS without personal crisis.
Will: What I hope is that what we’re trying to do is really clear. For NHS professionals at the sharp end of some of the most challenging work in the country, they can have the help that they need. We want to be able to provide the release of pressure and be that fast response to stop things spiralling. We also want to capitalise on the fact that everyone realises that, when the chips are down, the medical professionals will continue to do what is necessary. When Covid disappears there will still be horrendous oncology and A&E shifts, for example, and this comes back to the sustainability message. We’ve agreed charitable rates with our practitioners because while the pandemic is happening, people are happy to provide pro bono but to be sustainable we need to have a relationship that allows the practitioners to be there long term too.