The Resilience Hubs: A multi-site, mixed-methods evaluation of an NHS Outreach, Screening and Support Navigation service model to address the mental health needs of key workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: A healthy and resilient NHS and social care workforce is essential to ensure an optimal response to both the current pandemic and future large-scale crises. Research indicates that key workers are at high risk for both acute and long-lasting mental health issues as a result of the adversities faced during the pandemic. The NHS Clinical Leaders Network (2020) has issued an urgent call for action to ensure that NHS organisations prioritise initiatives to enhance mental health resilience and support provision for key workers during this time. The Lancet Psychiatry's immediate research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic (Holmes et al. 2020) include monitoring mental health issues and determining the best ways of signposting and delivering mental health services for vulnerable groups, including key workers, and to identify and provide interventions to promote mental wellbeing in key workers exposed to stress and trauma that can be delivered now and at scale. RESEARCH AIMS: This research will evaluate the Resilience Hub model in three UK sites. The Resilience Hub is a service model originally developed in response to the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. It has been adapted and repurposed in Greater Manchester to provide mental health screening and facilitation of access to evidence-based psychosocial support for NHS, social care and emergency response key workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The model is being replicated to support mental health needs of key workers in other UK regions. METHODS: The research will take 20 months. We will produce mixed method case studies triangulating findings from 1) quantitative analyses of routine mental health screening data collected at the three Hubs; 2) health economic analyses conducted using Hub clients' service use and health status data; 3) in-depth interviews with Hub providers (recovery workers; therapists; service managers; commissioners), and key workers who did and did not register with the Hubs. The project will deliver crucial data and evidence-based recommendations for ensuring the 'transactability' of the Hub approach (i.e. how it can be scaled up and replicated in other sites in the UK) and inform evidence-based commissioning both in the short-term (in response to the ongoing pandemic) and longer term (in response to future large-scale crises). These include: i) data relevant to the identification of subgroups of key workers with higher support needs and/or lower support uptake, to guide effective targeted outreach and model service demand; ii) recommendations for maximising mental health screening uptake and psychosocial support access and uptake following screening; iii) guidance on resolving systemic and organisational barriers to accessing onward psychosocial support; iv) economic data to inform future commissioning decisions.