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NHS England publishes latest NHS staff survey results

The 2017 NHS Staff Survey is published today showing that staff feel under pressure but say they are being better supported by their NHS managers.

Overall staff engagement is scored 3.78 out of 5 in 2017, up from 3.68 out of 5 in 2012.

More than four out of five, 81%, are satisfied with the quality of care they give to patients and nine out of 10 staff feel their organisation takes positive action on health and well-being.

Among the areas of concern highlighted by the research is that almost one in six members of staff, 15%, report that they have experienced physical violence from patients, relatives or members of the public.

The number satisfied with their pay fell to 31% down 6% on 2016.

Around a third of staff, 38%, said that they had experienced work related stress over the last 12 months, up 1.6% on the previous year but slightly down on five years ago.

Some 8% of staff say they have experienced discrimination from colleagues.

However, the number who said they were happy with the support they receive from their manager increased for the fifth year in a row to almost seven out of 10 (68%). Fewer staff also feel pressured by managers or colleagues to come to work when they are ill and fewer staff are working unpaid hours.

The survey was carried out in the run up to and during the NHS’ pressurised winter between September and December 2017 across 309 NHS organisations garnering 485,000 staff responses, an increase of 64,000 and an increase of 21% in responses from BME staff.  This takes in views from about a third of the NHS workforce and is the biggest response achieved in the survey’s 15-year history.

The survey is produced as a resource to NHS trusts and commissioners to help them improve staff experience. The Care Quality Commission will use the results to help make sure safety and quality standards are being met and NHS Improvement also looks at the findings which reveal significant variation between individual trusts, so helping them focus on areas needing attention. NHS England also runs a number of programmes to address issues at national level.

Variations are also seen between different types of NHS trusts in the results of the survey. Ambulance Trusts continued to report the lowest employee engagement scores.

Neil Churchill, Director of Patient experience at NHS England, said: “Staff are going above and beyond to deliver the best care under pressure and these results show that staff appreciate the efforts of managers to listen, support and act on staff concerns. Nevertheless there are warning signs NHS employers will need to do all they can to ensure the NHS supports our staff to deliver the high standards expected by patients.”

For the full survey results, please visit the NHS Staff Survey website.