Priory CEO welcomes Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal to Priory’s Care first as part of a visit organised by the Racing Welfare charity

• Priory CEO Rebekah Cresswell welcomes The Princess Royal to Priory’s Care first site as a part of a visit organised by charity Racing Welfare
• Care first provides mental health services to the charity Racing Welfare
• Care first, part of Priory, operates a helpline and counselling services
• The Princess Royal is a patron of Racing Welfare

Priory CEO Rebekah Cresswell welcomed a royal visitor to Care first when The Princess Royal came to see mental health services provided by Priory to the charity Racing Welfare.

The visit was arranged by Racing Welfare, which provides physical and mental health support to the workforce of British horseracing, including stud, stable and racecourse staff alongside those who work in allied professions.

As part of this support, it offers wellbeing and counselling services provided by Care first - part of Priory - a leading provider of workplace wellbeing and counselling to employees of public and private sector organisations.

For Racing Welfare, Care first provides a number of services including a 24-hour support line, which offers information services on subjects including debt management, online counselling and referrals to third party services, such as occupational health.

The Princess Royal was introduced to Simone Sear, Director of Welfare at Racing Welfare, Lesley Davidson of Care first, and the Priory CEO, and was shown around the centre where she met and chatted to specialist staff who operate ‘Employee Assistance Programmes’ and other mental health support services. The EAP Programmes consist of a telephone counselling helpline, face-to-face counselling and a range of other support services.

Priory CEO Rebekah Cresswell, who greeted The Princess Royal, said; “I was delighted to welcome Her Royal Highness to the Care first service in Gloucester. She has an incredibly busy schedule so it was an honour to have her come to Care first to see what we do for Racing Welfare, a charity which does so much for the horse-racing community. So many people have struggled with their mental health during the pandemic, and services like those offered by Racing Welfare are key. We are extremely proud to work with them, and I am also proud of Care first colleagues who go above and beyond to help those who turn to wellbeing and counselling services in times of need.”

Simone Sear, Director of Welfare at Racing Welfare, said; “It was a wonderful opportunity for our president to see our delivery partners in action and the fantastic service we’re able to deliver round the clock to people working in racing when they need us. Importantly, we were able to demonstrate our vast breadth of services available through our support line, including counselling, occupational health, information and advice and careers advice and training. Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal was also able to see how we’ve been able to grow and develop, including the new addition of critical incident support. We are very grateful for her ongoing support and proud to showcase what we have to offer the racing industry.”

Lesley Davidson, Operations Director at Care first said; “We were delighted to welcome Her Royal Highness to Care first. We are very proud of our association with Racing Welfare and it was an honour to be able to talk about the work that we do with Racing Welfare with Her Royal Highness.”

ENDS

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About Priory and MEDIAN

Priory is the UK’s leading independent provider of mental health services. We treat more than 70 conditions, including depression, anxiety, addictions and eating disorders, as well as children’s mental health, across our nationwide network of sites. We also support autistic adults and adults with a learning disability, Prader-Willi Syndrome and brain injuries, as well as older people, within our specialist residential care and supported living facilities – helping as many people as possible to live their lives.

Priory is part of the MEDIAN Group, one of Europe’s leading providers of high quality mental health and rehabilitation services. The MEDIAN Group comprises 290 facilities with 5,000 beds caring for 28,000 people in the UK, 120 facilities with 20,000 beds caring for around 250,000 patients in Germany, and 15 facilities with 2,000 beds caring for 13,000 people in Spain, with more than 29,000 employees overall.