Staff health and wellbeing
As well as supporting your professional development and clinical practice, your library service can help to support the health and wellbeing of you and your team. Whether it's borrowing some uplifting fiction to help you destress during your well deserved annual leave, or reading up on research on supporting your teams wellbeing, reading is an important tool to boost and protect your wellbeing.
Book clubs
We have a number of book groups in Leeds. These a great way of taking a break from work for your health and wellbeing.
- Leeds Community Healthcare Book Club - Further details on LCH intranet
- Leeds Teaching Hospitals - Shelf Indulgence Book Club
- LGBTQ+ Book Club
- Neurodivergent Book Club
You can also search for a book group in your area on the Reading Groups For Everyone Website or you can set up your own reading group with support of Leeds Public Libraries. Please visit the Leeds City Council website for further guidance.
The cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on our community, affecting not only people’s finances but their health and wellbeing too. Our cost of living page lists details of resources and organisations across Leeds offering support with bills, food, heating, mental wellbeing and more.
Support with wellbeing initiatives
Our evidence search service can save you time. Our librarians carry out expert searches of academic and informal literature from healthcare databases and a wide range of online sources. If you need to gather evidence to inform a wellbeing initiative or support a business case with statistics and research, you can request an evidence search.
Or, if you would like to promote resources around a specific wellbeing topic for your team, why not contact your library and see if we can support you to highlight the right online resources and books to make sure information is as accessible and reliable as possible.
Support from Leeds Public Libraries
Beyond Leeds Libraries for Health, public library services are committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of the local population. With sites across the city, Leeds Libraries offer resources and support on a wide range of topics, including digital skills and language learning, as well as a huge range of fiction and non fiction for all ages.
Whether for yourself, team members or patients, you might find the support you need through your local library.
Wellbeing books
Enjoyable leisure time is important for wellbeing. If you've been thinking about taking up a new hobby or a novel for the weekend, there may be something for you amongst our wellbeing book collection.
Books on skills for wellbeing
Your Health Collection - book recommendations and online tools
Access, understand and use trusted health resources to live well and enjoy better health.
Health Education England (NHS) and The Reading Agency have worked in partnership to bring together the new ‘Your Health Collection’, to support users of health libraries to understand and manage their own health.
This collection of 30 free online tools to support you to live well and enjoy better health were chosen by those working in healthcare, health information and knowledge and library specialists working in the NHS, in prisons, in public health and in Higher Education. The resources chosen are accessible, inclusive and reflect the diversity of society.
They have also provided a list of ten book recommendations they have well stocked across all the libraries on our library catalogue. The titles are as follows:
- Preparing for the perimenopause and menopause by Dr Louise Newson (2021)
- The Trans Guide to Mental Health and Wellbeing by Katy Lees (2022)
- How to build a healthy brain: reduce stress, anxiety and depression and future-proof your brain by Kimberley Wilson (2020)
- It's Not OK to Feel Blue and other Lies: inspirational people open up about their mental health by Scarlett Curtis (2019)
- Recovery - the lost art of convalescence by Dr Gavin Francis (2022)
- Men's Health: all you need to know in one concise manual by Jim Pollard (2020)
- The Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind by Isabel Hardman (2020)
- The book about getting older (for people who don't want to talk about it) by Dr Lucy Pollock (2021)
- A manual for being human: what makes us who we are, why it matters and practical advice for a happier life › YorCat catalogue (koha-ptfs.co.uk)
- Chronic pain management: Your two-part plan for understanding pain and finding relief by David Walton (2021)