Survey shows NHS staff recommend their Trust as a place to receive care
Date: 27 March 2012
The results of a national NHS survey has revealed that staff in Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield who work for South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust would recommend it as place to work or receive treatment, compared with similar organisations across the country.
Trust staff were amongst the top 20% in the country for responding positively to this particular question, and many others.
The Trust provides a range of community, mental health and learning disability services, employing around 4600 staff. It took part in the 9th annual NHS staff survey in the autumn of 2011 and results have just been made public.
The results for South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust were compared to similar organisations across the country and came out in the top 20% for the following areas:
- Recommendation of the Trust as a place to work or receive treatment – Staff were asked whether or not they thought care of service users was the Trust’s top priority, whether they would recommend the Trust as a place to work, and whether they would be happy with the standard of care if a friend or relative needed treatment. The score was statistically one of the highest in the country, compared to other similar organisations.
- 93% of staff agree that their role makes a difference to patients – this includes responses from staff who do not work directly in clinical roles and has increased by 3% since last year
- 79% of staff felt satisfied with the quality of work and patient care they are able to deliver; this is higher than the national average of 74% and has seen a 4% improvement for the Trust since last year
- The Trust’s commitment to work life balance, work pressure felt by staff and staff intention to leave their jobs; these scores were all statistically better than the national average
Other scores in the top 20% in the country included:
- 94% believing the Trust provides equal opportunities for career progression or promotion
- 91% receiving health and safety training in the last 12 months
- 56% staff were working extra hours, much lower than the national average of 65%
- 49% feeling that there are good opportunities to develop their potential at work
- 49% receiving job relevant training, learning and development in the last 12 months
- 11% staff experiencing discrimination at work over the last 12 months, a drop of 4% from last year
However, there were some results that indicate a need for improvement, such as:
- 42% of staff had received equality and diversity training in the last year; an improvement of last years score of 35% but still lower than the 53% national average
- 16% of staff said they had experienced bullying or harassment from staff, compared to the national average of 13%
Speaking about the results of the survey, Alan Davis, Director of Human Resources and Workforce Development for the Trust said, "Over the last year there have been many changes to our Trust as we welcomed a significant number of staff and services to our organisation – this included all community and mental health services in Barnsley. It is clear that, throughout these changes, staff have felt supported, valued and, most importantly, felt proud of the care we can provide to local people.
"These results reflect the high value the Trust has for our skilled and dedicated workforce who diligently work to ensure quality care we would recommend to others. Our Trust is nationally recognised as being at the forefront of developing wellbeing initiatives for staff, including leading on a research project that looks at the link between staff wellbeing and quality of care.
"The survey provides us with helpful information that we can use to continually improve the working lives of staff and consequently provide better care for service users and their carers. The fact that more staff in our Trust would recommend this as a place to work or receive treatment than in other similar NHS organisations is something we are very proud of."
Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley said: "Too many trusts continue to have less favourable levels of recommendation to family and friends. The NHS should use this as a basis for seeing improvement in the services we deliver for patients in the future."
Page last updated on March 27th, 2012
