Staff survey Speaking up and raising concerns
The ‘Raising concerns’ sub-score remained at a similar level to 2022, following a decline between 2021 and 2022. On most measures contributing to this score, the results remain similar between 2022 and 2023, but the proportion of staff who would be confident that their organisation would address any concerns they raised has increased by around one percentage point. When it comes to concerns about clinical safety, the percentage of staff who feel secure raising such concerns is now at a five-year low. Confidence to raise clinical safety concerns has declined by around six percentage points among medical and dental staff since 2021.
Experience of harassment, bullying and abuse
There has been a decrease in the proportion of staff claiming to have experienced harassment, bullying and abuse at work in the last 12 months. The proportions of staff saying they experienced harassment, bullying and abuse from patients/ service users, relatives or the public (25.78%), managers (10.17%) or other colleagues (18.09%) are all at a five-year low. The level of harassment, bullying and abuse from managers experienced within the last 12 months has continued to decrease, showing consistent declines between 2020 and 2023 in all Trust types.
Perhaps reflecting ongoing disputes, trends differ for different staff groups: while most are now more satisfied with pay than in 2022, the proportion of medical and dental staff who were satisfied with their pay fell by 4.5% points to 32.0% - continuing a steep decline from a high of 56.9% in 2020. This year, the survey included a new question asking staff whether they had “been the target of unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature in the workplace”, either from patients and the public or from colleagues. The definition of “unwanted behaviour” is broad, including inappropriate conversations and “jokes” as well as touching and assault. Overall, 8.7% of staff – equivalent to more than 120,000 people when scaled to the size of the workforce – reported being the target of unwanted sexual behaviour from patients and the public. Unsurprisingly, this figure was much higher for staff in roles that are frequently patient-facing (11.5%), and there was significant variation between different staff groups. The highest rates were reported by ambulance
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technicians (36.1%) and paramedics (32.2%). Commenting on the findings, Chris Graham, Chief Executive at Picker, said: “The results from the 2023 NHS Staff Survey provide welcome good news for providers, as they show frequently substantial improvements across many of the most important areas of workforce experience. This follows a period of time where staff experience had suffered in the wake of the pandemic, and – while in many cases results have not yet returned to the pre-pandemic level – it is encouraging to see these improvements in staff engagement and wellbeing.
Only around 1 in 3 staff feel that there are enough staff to do their jobs properly, an improvement compared to last year
“With more than 700,000 responses nationally, the survey is a goldmine of insight for organisations wishing to understand the experiences of their staff. Beneath the national level, it offers detailed evidence on the experiences of different staff and demographic groups within Trusts – and we encourage all providers to delve deep into the data to understand how different parts of their workforce experience working life. There is much room for further improvement and an opportunity to build on progress over the last year to make the NHS the best possible place to work. “This should be a top priority for
organisations, both because better workforce experience is associated with a range of positive outcomes – including better patient experiences, lower sickness absence rates, and higher staff retention – and because the people working hard to deliver a person centred health service deserve to see that care reciprocated.” Commenting on the publication of the NHS staff survey, Ruth Thorlby, Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation, said: “The results
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