The Remote and Rural Healthcare Education Alliance (RRHEAL), which is part of NHS Education for Scotland (NES), along with partners from Sweden, Norway, Canada, Iceland, contributed to an international project “Making it Work” (2015-2019), exploring factors related to workforce recruitment and retention in Remote & Rural environments. The buddy framework was developed by the Scottish team, supported by the SRMC. This resource on Strengthening team cohesion by being a buddy – a professional friend is for new and redeployed Health & Social Care workers.
The central role of the buddy in the workplace is to ensure that patients/clients are the focus whilst assisting the staff member to make effective use of available time, resources, prioritising workload, managing workload and stress. Buddying has a bias towards support professional practice in accordance NHS Scotland Quality objectives.
Buddying is not peer-to-peer support which has a bias towards a long-term, self-selected supportive relationship which can take place outwith normal working hours.
Being a buddy is an important part of supporting new Health & Social Care Staff into teams. This video explains more about being a professional buddy, coaching and an important section on supporting mental health at work.