How Aster designed wellbeing support around the realities of caring
2025 WINNER · Caring for the carers
Aster DM Healthcare’s winning entry focused on the people delivering care: nurses, doctors and pharmacy staff facing compassion fatigue, emotional exhaustion and limited recovery time. Pulse checks, grievances and sick-leave patterns helped identify where support was needed.
What they did
The programme paired sessions on compassion fatigue and burnout with emotional-boundary training, financial wellbeing, stress regulation and a live and on-demand wellbeing talk show. Recorded and blended formats made participation more practical for shift workers.
A separate nursing listening platform, Front-Line Obsession 3.0, ran alongside the programme. Its role was to gather staff ideas and drive operational changes, rather than to act as another wellbeing activity. Examples in the entry included changes to accommodation privacy, security and administrative support.
HR worked with clinicians, Risk, external trainers and leaders, spreading responsibility for delivery across the organisation.
What the entry shows
Aster reported that nine initiatives engaged 2,260 carers between January and August 2025. More than 90% of session feedback ratings were four or five out of five for relevance and practicality.
The parallel nursing platform reportedly gathered more than 1,800 suggestions through six townhalls, with over 1,200 actioned at the time of submission. These are reported delivery and feedback measures; they do not by themselves establish a reduction in burnout.
What others can learn
Care for carers needs to address emotional demands and the conditions of work together. Training can offer language and practical tools, while listening processes identify obstacles that teams cannot solve through personal coping alone.
Aster’s example also shows why access matters: support needs to fit shifts, locations and the limited time available to healthcare professionals.
Based on the organisation’s original 2025 mentl awards submission. Figures and observations are those reported in the entry.
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