Staff wellness is an important focus for our department, not least because we know a happy, healthy, fulfilled workforce provide better care. Caring for acutely unwell and injured children is a uniquely stressful event in the ED. Staff reported going home still thinking through cases and worrying about their involvement in them. There were lots of examples of great care being provided, but no culture of analysing when and why things went well in order to replicate the practice. Staff know when care could have been better, but with no process to consolidate learning and make changes the same problems tended to recur.
