Staff at the Royal Free London are celebrating after their efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of their colleagues scooped the trust an award.

The London Healthy Workplace Charter supports and recognises investment in staff health and wellbeing and is backed by the Mayor of London. The trust has received an achievement award from the charter for its work in providing a healthy workplace and is one of over 150 organisations that have met the required standards.

The public health and workforce teams at the Royal Free London are responsible for improving the health and wellbeing of staff and have launched a number of initiatives over the last year, including health and wellbeing days, a ‘green gym’  and healthy café at Chase Farm Hospital and walking groups at the trust’s three main hospital sites.

An app to help staff count their steps and keep on top of their health was also introduced and free confidential support and advice is available to staff on a number of work, home and health related issues.

Dr Alison Rodger, director of public health at the Royal Free London, said: “We are delighted to have been recognised for our work in trying to improve the health and wellbeing of our staff. We have almost 10,000 staff delivering care to more than 1.6 million patients across 30 locations, so having a healthy workforce is vital for us.

“As NHS staff we should always strive to lead by example to help improve the health and wellbeing of our patients. The initiatives we have introduced are designed to encourage our staff to think differently about their health and take small steps to improve, which will hopefully lead to bigger changes for themselves and their patients.”