Emergency Departments (EDs) are a crucial component of the healthcare system, but ED staff are experiencing high levels of ‘burnout’. Autonomous motivation supports the occupational wellbeing of nurses and doctors and is associated with better care quality, whereas controlled motivation is associated with poorer care quality, staff burnout and intention to leave. Autonomy, competence, and relatedness, central tenets of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), have been shown to be universal predictors of optimal functioning, as they increase autonomous, and decrease controlled, motivations. (See Figure 1) AIM: We sought understanding of institutional work and its impact on the individual psychological wellbeing of ED staff to prioritise codesign patient care initiatives likely to promote staff experience.