FREE First Aid for Mental Health Training to NHS Workers

Stress and anxiety levels are rising during the pandemic and we want to help create ‘Wellbeing Champions’ who can support colleagues, friends and family who might be experiencing mental health issues.

Throughout 2021 we are waiving the usual £195 plus VAT fee to NHS workers who sign up for our online First Aid for Mental Health Level 2 Award course.

Skills Shop are launching the initiative in the run-up to Random Acts of Kindness Day, which this year falls on Wednesday, February 17.

The course covers identifying specific mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety and self-harm and understanding the effects of drugs and alcohol. It helps people understand how to start a conversation with someone who they believe might be struggling and how to signpost those people to get the help they need.

The course would be useful for any NHS worker including, for example, a practice manager or receptionist in a GP surgery or a junior doctor, a nurse and a porter in a hospital.

There are many benefits to NHS staff taking the course. It could help them support colleagues, family or friends who might be struggling with stress, anxiety and depression. They might also recognise symptoms of such conditions in themselves that they had not previously understood.

This is part of Skills Shop’s corporate social responsibility activity, we just love to give back in any way we can and this is our personal way of thanking all those who work for the NHS for all their hard work and the sacrifice they have made this past year during the pandemic.

Those who sign up to the course get instant access, their own user name and password and the opportunity to take, and print out, digital notes. The course can be done in stages over a period if preferred. On completion of an online assessment at the end, they receive an in-house Skills Shop certificate. If they want the course to be OFQUAL accredited, they pay £15 plus VAT and Skills Shop organises for them to receive an accredited certificate. The certificate is valid for three years.

Any NHS worker who wants to take the free course – or an NHS manager who wants to sign up members of their team – should go to https://skillsshop.co.uk/product/first-aid-for-mental-health/

They should use their NHS work email when checking out and enter NHSTALK21 into the coupon box.