Fiona Clarke joins the Nuffield Health Bournemouth Hospital team with more than 25 years’ healthcare experience and has been delivering both individual and group wellbeing support for the past nine years. Fiona primarily works with people experiencing depression and anxiety. In addition to this, Fiona has worked with individuals who have long-term health conditions, brain injuries and persons on the autism spectrum.

In her current role, Fiona oversees the delivery of a form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for both private patients and hospital staff. CBT is a talking therapy that can be used to treat a range of common mental health problems such as anxiety, stress, depression, panic attacks and phobias.

Fiona says: “My role involves working collaboratively with patients as well as staff at the hospital to help them to assess their problem and how it affects their daily life. This can be via the telephone, video calls or in clinics, face-to-face. We try to help a person to make sense of their problem, introduce them to self-help activities, teach them techniques to help improve their sense of wellbeing and reduce the chance of any problems in the future.”

David McNair, hospital director at Nuffield Health Bournemouth Hospital, adds: “We are pleased to welcome Fiona to the team to provide support both the local community and our staff’s emotional wellbeing. As an Emotional Wellbeing Therapist, Fiona is available to help individuals to understand their difficulties and to develop the skills and resources to manage or overcome them.”