The VHI Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is a free service available to IPU members. If a pharmacy is a member of the IPU, this means that the pharmacy team can also avail of this free service.
The VHI-EAP is a confidential service designed to help you and your team to cope with all of life’s ups and downs. The VHI-EAP online portal provides free access to useful information and a wide range of resources that will support you and your team, not only in your working day, but in your day-to-day life.
Pharmacy owners, once aware that a member of staff has a mental health issue, must take reasonable steps to accommodate an employee to look after their mental health and to have resources available to support them with this. The VHI-EAP provides those in governance roles with another tool to help provide this support.
The VHI-EAP can also be used as a tool to support pharmacy staff members to perform at their best, to help them manage stress better and avoid burnout and to foster a positive working environment at the pharmacy. This service provides a sounding board of independent expert resources where pharmacy staff can talk through concerns that may be difficult or sensitive, and that are affecting them.
Pharmacy is a busy environment in which the pharmacy team is knitted closely together. When pharmacy staff come to work, they also bring their concerns and worries (personal and/or work-related). There will be occasions in which a staff member may notice how a colleague is in a low mood — this staff member may need help and perhaps they have not realised it yet, or they do not know how to ask for help.
The VHI-EAP team is there to provide the practical and emotional support this pharmacy staff member may need. Having a VHI-EAP poster in the staff canteen area with the programme contact details is always useful for situations like this. The staff member can take down the details and call the VHI-EAP on their own terms as they can have 24/7 in-the-moment telephone support from a qualified accredited counsellor. Where clinically appropriate, the pharmacy staff member can access a set number of structured counselling sessions delivered by telephone, video or in person.
The VHI-EAP also provides a manager support helpline. This is a great tool for those in governance roles. Superintendent pharmacists or pharmacy owners may consider availing of this support on matters including managing difficult conversations with staff members regarding their performance or critical incidents.
In addition to this, those discharging a managerial role may consider signposting pharmacy staff members to the different resources available through this programme. For example, a staff member shares their struggles with their teenager’s behaviour or toddler’s tantrums with the pharmacy team. This situation at home may be causing stress which is impacting the staff member’s work performance. Having someone to talk to about these matters may help to reduce their stress and improve their work performance. The VHI-EAP provides parent coaching services via telephone, and can help with issues ranging from helping children cope with change, moving to a new school, separation, bereavement, bullying, and anxiety, to strategies for self-care. This additional service is there to provide a little extra support and information for everyday parenting challenges.
The VHI-EAP can also support those in governance with critical incidents. Critical incidents in the workplace can take different shapes, from a dispensing error leaving those involved with their confidence undermined, to a fire incident or theft at the pharmacy premises. Not everyone will react in the same way to an event, nor at the same time. There will be cases in which, after a critical incident, a staff member may indicate that they have not been affected by the event, but their performance may reflect otherwise. The VHI-EAP is there to provide:
The CBT programme ‘Living life to the full’ is available on the VHI-EAP portal. This course will help pharmacy staff to understand how they feel and bring awareness regarding their feeling. This enables them to identify blocks or situations that may make them feel worse, and therefore, they can seek advice on how to overcome these situations. For example, they might feel overwhelmed because there are too many Healthmail prescriptions in the inbox, deliveries to put away, quality checks to carry out, and so on. Being aware of what is stressing the individual may empower them to be able to discuss this matter with the team and look for a potential solution, for example, processing only those Healthmail prescriptions that patients have requested, or delegating some of the quality assurance checks to a trained member of the team.
The CBT programme will also boost the pharmacy staff’s confidence, help them to manage their anxieties and worries, and empower them to step forward and ask for what they need.
There are several ways IPU members can engage with the VHI-EAP: via freephone, email or accessing the VHI-EAP portal. These details are available to IPU members at ipu.ie > Support > Mental Health and Wellbeing. For further information please contact the IPU Professional Service team at pharmacists@ipu.ie.
Lara Marín
Professional Services Pharmacist, IPU
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