Background to the NHS Staff Surveys

NHS England took ownership of the NHS Staff Survey (NSS) from the Department of Health in April 2013. Previously, from 2003 to 2009, the Care Quality Commission and its predecessor the Healthcare Commission owned the survey.

The NHS Staff Survey offers a snapshot in time of how people experience their working lives, gathered at the same time each year. Its strength is in capturing a national picture alongside local detail, enabling NHS England to explore staff experience across different parts of the NHS and work to bring about the necessary improvements.

The NHS Staff Survey results are predominantly aimed at NHS organisations, to inform local improvements in staff experience and well-being.

The results are also used by NHS England to support national assessments of quality and safety. The Care Quality Commission uses the results to inform their Intelligent Monitoring work to help to decide who, where and what to inspect.

The views of bank-only staff have been collected in a separate, tailored survey (NSSB) since 2023. For 2025, organisations with more than 200 bank-only staff were mandated to take part: other organisations were able to participate on a voluntary basis. As such, findings are not directly comparable with the main NHS Staff Survey results.

The results for the voluntary 2025 General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS) are being released directly to participating organisations and will not be published by NHS England.

2025 NHS Staff Survey (NSS) results publication

The 2025 NHS Staff Survey results were published at 9:30am on Thursday 12 March 2026 on the Staff Survey Coordination Centre website.

This is the fifth year the NHS Staff Survey results have been aligned with the seven elements of the People Promise, which sets out in the words of our NHS people what would make the NHS the best place to work. This means most of the 2025 results can be compared to previous years, whilst many of the questions and the two themes (engagement and morale) have longer trend data.

Further to receiving local data, each organisation received its benchmark report under embargo on Tuesday 24 February 2026. These reports were also published on the Staff Survey Coordination Centre website with the rest of the survey results.

The 24-hour pre-release access list for the 2025 survey can be found here: National NHS Staff Survey 2025 Pre-release access list.

2025 NHS Staff Survey for Bank-only workers (NSSB) results publication

The results for the 2025 NHS Staff Survey for bank only workers (NSSB) will be released on the Staff Survey Coordination Centre website on Thursday 16 April 2025. The 24-hour pre-release access list for the 2025 survey will also be published on the same website.

If you have any questions, please contact the Staff Survey Coordination Centre: nhsstaffsurvey@surveycoordination.com.

Contact us

For further information, please contact: england.staffsurveyengagement@nhs.net.