Fewer staff are leaving the NHS in the South East than in previous years with retention schemes helping to cut the numbers leaving the health service to one of its lowest levels in over a decade.

In the South East, 10.6% of workers left the NHS in the 12 months up to September 2024, compared to 11.2% of workers in the same period up to September 2023, and 13.4% in the same period up to September 2022.

The South East performance is consistent with retention across the NHS nationally, where one in ten (10.1%) workers left the NHS in the 12 months up to September 2024 – nearly 21,300 fewer than in the same period up to September 2022 when one in eight (12.5%) left the health service.

The fall in the number of leavers has been supported by an initial 2-year programme, ‘The People Promise’ aimed at finding new ways to improve retention in the NHS – encouraging action by staff, for staff, around flexible working, leadership and culture.

Thanks to the programme, nearly 4,500 full time equivalent staff members are estimated to have been supported to stay in the service across the country.

A newly-published review of the initiative also found that the number of leavers fell by an average of 11.8% for organisations involved in the pilot – with those implementing more interventions improving their leaver rates the most.

It found that efficient use of e-rostering, supporting flexible working and flexible retirement, and local listening sessions for staff had the biggest impact on improvements to leaver rates.

Louise Hall, NHS England in the South East’s Director of Workforce and Training and Education, said:

“It is fantastic to see the impact of the efforts to improve the working environment for NHS staff in the South East, with fewer staff leaving the health service in the last year across the region.

“We know that the NHS is nothing without its colleagues, and The People Promise exemplar programme shows what is possible when you listen to staff and work with them to make changes that improve their lives.

“We hope to see more and more NHS organisations in the South East working to make changes to improve the everyday experience of their teams, which in turn will help improve staff retention.”

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 23 organisations involved in the cohort 1 pilot and has made a range of interventions to help improve staff experience, engagement and retention rates.

Areas of focus included; supporting internationally recruited colleagues; developing a Just Culture programme; a new management of leavers policy that includes the option to review ways to stay;  promoting flexible and agile working, significantly increasing the proportion of roles that are advertised with flexible working options, from 7% to 86%; providing cost of living support; trained career coaches and increasing the capacity of the in-house counselling service; developing a strategy to reduce violence and racism against colleagues; and harnessing charitable funding to provide a wellbeing garden.

The trust also created a bespoke support package for internationally recruited colleagues for which they have been awarded the Pastoral Care Quality Award. Thanks to all these efforts they have seen a reduction in their employee turnover from 14.6% to 10.6%.

Karon Hart, Director of Workforce & Wellbeing, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, added:

“We were delighted to be selected to take part in Cohort 1 of the national People Promise Exemplar programme. We implemented a bundle of interventions with the aim of improving the overall experience of colleagues, through increasing engagement and reducing attrition.

“This was underpinned by a strong internal campaign to raise awareness of the People Promise. The results from our staff survey show the effectiveness of our interventions, with improvements across each of the People Promise areas.”