A discussion with our friends at Doctor’s in Distress; a charity which is dedicated to supporting healthcare workers suffering within the NHS and prevents suicide within the profession. With 3 guest speakers we discuss: The consequences of not looking after the mental health of our healthcare workersIncreased burnoutHealthcare workers leaving the profession Poor mental health and in some cases suicide amongst all healthcare professionalsThe current GP crisis The damage of the healthcare workers as heroes narrativeIncreased pressure on an already burned out and perfectionist workforceHealthcare workers are already reluctant to ask for help – if they’re called heroes/heroines this inhibits this further.Links: Doctors in Distress Permitted to Pause Bios: Dr Gavin McColl Gavin is a trustee of 'Doctors in Distress' a charity that supports healthcare workers and prevents suicide within the profession. He helped establish the 'Primary Care Gambling Service', an integrated counselling service for problem gamblers that also helps to improve recognition and competence in primary care of this emerging public health issue. He is the Clinical Lead for New Cross Health Centre and Sternhall Lane Surgery and is passionate about transforming the patient journey through health services in order to better address the complexity now seen in modern primary care. In 2010 he established the charity 'On Call Africa' with three colleagues and has developed a replicable model that addresses remote health care delivery in Zambia which works to strengthen and augment, rather than replace, the capacity of the existing health services.   Miss Samantha Anthony Samantha is an Associate Specialist in Dermatology at West Herts NHS Trust, principally working as a skin cancer surgeon for the past 14 years and previously as a GP too.  After being diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and when reaching burnout in 2017, she created Permitted To Pause (www.permittedtopause.co.uk and instagram @permittedtopause), to reach out to doctors and healthcare professionals to encourage positive changes to their well-being, and share understanding of why self-care is so often a low priority in the profession, and to help us all to overcome our barriers to this. Samantha has met and collaborated with DiD since 2020, sharing ideas and fund raising, and continues to support all the excellent work that they do.   Brenda Donnelly Brenda is a CD for South Southwark PCN serving a 145K population. She qualified as an RGN in Belfast in 1983 and has practiced in the UK, The Netherlands and Australia. She landed in primary care in 1994 as a GPN and happily found her niche, she completed a MSc in Primary Care development 2003 and a PGCE in Primary care in 2015. An ex-Nurse partner in South East London she currently enjoys a portfolio career she is particularly interested in community and practice development and working with families and children in deprived areas.   She is passionate about growing and supporting multi professional primary care teams fit for providing future population health.