Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), a provider of mental health and disability services has welcomed the latest results from the annual NHS Staff Survey. This survey, undertaken by all NHS Trusts in England, is an important measure of what life is like for NHS staff.
James Duncan, Chief Executive at CNTW, said: “We’re pleased to see that the staff who responded still overwhelmingly agree that patient care is our organisation’s top priority (80%), that they feel trusted to do their job (91%), and that their role makes a difference to patients (86%).
“Our staff are our most important asset, so we are delighted to see so many are feeling positive about the work they do.
“Thank you to all of the 3,302 staff who made their voices heard in this year’s survey. As always, we will be looking carefully at these results to make sure we are listening to our staff, and acting on what they tell us, to make sure CNTW continues to be a great place to work. This data will also be used to shape work to ensure we meet our commitments to staff laid out in our strategy, ‘With You in Mind’.”
James added, “People often ask how we use the data from each year’s staff survey to make a difference. One example in particular stands out to me this year – the results of our work to reduce violence against staff.
“Everyone must feel safe at work, and over the past few years we have used data from the annual staff survey to target our ongoing work reducing violent incidents where it is most needed.
“Now, fewer staff than ever are reporting that they have been affected by violence from patients at work. (82% of staff now say they haven’t experienced physical violence from a patient or member of the public this year, up from 78% last year.) All violence and harassment towards our staff is unacceptable, and we’ll continue to work on reducing this over the coming year.”
The survey revealed staff were confident raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice, report concerns or incidents (91%), and that they agree the organisation takes action to continually learn and improve to ensure that mistakes do not happen again (74%).
However, results did show a decline in some areas around staff’s confidence to speak up. Responding to this, James Duncan said, “CNTW is committed to having an open and just culture, and I want to take this opportunity to assure our staff that if they do raise any concerns, we will always listen and act to provide the safest care and working environment possible.”
The survey also revealed that staff hoped for more career development opportunities. (65% of staff who responded in 2022 were satisfied with the opportunities at CNTW, compared to 60% in 2023.) Work is already underway to ensure more and better opportunities for staff to develop in their career at CNTW, and we are looking forward to sharing more about these later in 2024.
Find the full results of the national NHS Staff Survey here.