Using the People Pulse as a listening tool – Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Formed in 2019, following the merger of the 2gether NHS Foundation Trust and Gloucestershire Care Service NHS Trust, Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust provides joined up physical health, mental health and learning disability services.

As a new trust, chief executive Paul Roberts and his team were keen to listen to colleagues regularly as part of shaping their ‘open and supportive’ culture.

The People Pulse offered them the opportunity to listen to colleagues and improve their experience. The speedy return of data each month (within four working days) has helped them to capture ‘in the moment’ temperature checks and feedback from colleagues, and also save time and money by not having to source a survey provider of their own.

Implementing the People Pulse has also had the following benefits:

  • Increased colleague insight: A good response rate to the People Pulse has led to better understanding of colleague insights and views across the trust. At the time of launch, the trust communicated the reasons behind implementing the People Pulse to colleagues, with one of the key reasons being that senior leaders valued their views.
  • Easily accessible data: The trust has been able to gather data in simple, quick, accessible ways via the People Pulse results dashboard, which generates the data and responses into easy to read reports with themes and percentages.
  • Continuous colleague involvement: The trust shares its People Pulse results on the intranet and in their newsletters to continue the conversation with colleagues. The results are also discussed at the trust’s health and wellbeing ‘hub’, which has created positive working relationships with colleagues in a variety of different job roles and teams, allowing their voices to continue to be heard beyond the pulse survey.
  • Prompt follow-up actions: By receiving data frequently, colleague feedback in the form of concerns, ideas and suggestions can be acted on promptly by the trust to make informed improvements. These follow-up actions are reported back through a ‘you said, we did’ format which allows colleagues to see that their feedback has been listened to.

For more information on how Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust have used the People Pulse as a feedback channel for employee voice, contact Linda Gabaldoni, Head of Leadership and Organisational Development Linda.Gabaldoni@ghc.nhs.uk

If you are interested in taking part in the People Pulse, contact the Staff Experience and Engagement team nhsi.peoplepulse@nhs.net