Growing occupational health and wellbeing together strategy

NHS Growing occupational health and wellbeing (OHWB) together is our five-year strategy to improve the health and wellbeing services for our NHS people, to keep them safe and healthy, and empowered to pass good care onto our patients. This forms part of our ambition for a proactive culture of wellbeing within our NHS people plan and people promise.

Growing OHWB together now also forms a mandate for action for integrated care systems and NHS organisations as part of whole system workforce planning, having been included as part of 2023-24 NHS priorities and operational planning guidance. This demonstrates the importance placed in looking after the health and wellbeing of all our NHS people in the workplace.

Collaboration is at the heart of Growing OHWB together, which has been co-designed with input from over 1,000 stakeholders across the entire healthcare system, including; national experts, OHWB and human resources and organisational development professionals, healthcare leaders, through to managers and employees as the ‘service user’ of OHWB. The strategy provides a united roadmap for improving OHWB in the NHS, whilst also encouraging the need for flexible interpretation in every local context. It focuses on four key improvement drivers, including growing the OHWB positive identity, professional workforce, services across systems, and impact/practice, with the core vision of:

“Improving the health and wellbeing of our NHS people by growing our occupational health and wellbeing services and people to be trusted, strategic and integrated partners”.

NHS England is committed to supporting NHS organisations and systems to achieve the aspirations within Growing OHWB together through a comprehensive programme of work that underpins the strategy ambitions. You can find out more by