More than 90% of EPUT staff feel they’re making a difference to people’s lives, according to the 2020 NHS Staff Survey published today (11 March).
This year’s results show that in six of the ten key areas, scores were significantly higher than last year including quality of care, wellbeing, morale and safety culture.
The trust scored higher than average on quality of care compared to other mental health, learning disability and community NHS trusts with 85.2% of staff satisfied with the quality of care they give to patients.80% of staff also said the care of patients and service users was the organisation’s top priority – up 6% on last year.
The results come only a few weeks after Trust published its new inpatient safety strategy, ‘Safety First, Safety Always’ which sets out the organisation ambition to provide the best and safest care possible for patients.
More than 2,300 EPUT staff completed the survey last autumn, a response rate of 47%.
There were improvements to EPUT’s scores in nine out of 10 themes compared to 2019, with one staying the same and no reductions in scores
In a year like no other for the NHS with the COVID-19 pandemic, the trust’s overall score for health and wellbeing was significantly higher than last year with 10% more staff agreeing that the trust ‘definitely’ takes positive action on health and wellbeing.
The percentage of staff who would recommend EPUT as a place to work also rose sharply to 67.8%, up 8.7% on 2019.
Sean Leahy, Executive Director of People and Culture at EPUT, said: “The staff survey results are a critical barometer on how our workforce is feeling and are particularly important during the current pandemic. The results give us an opportunity to build on our successes, gauging the views of our staff and telling us where we need to focus our attention to make improvements. We are extremely proud of our workforce and their voice is imperative to the success of the Trust going forward.
“The wellbeing of our staff has always been a priority, but none more so than now. The last 12 months have been particularly challenging for our colleagues and a lot of effort has been made to ensure as much support as possible is available to them at a time when they need it most
“We know there is more work to be done however. We continue to learn from these surveys and are making further improvements to address concerns on equality and diversity and bullying and harassment. We will act on feedback from staff to continue making improvements so that EPUT becomes an even better organisation to be part of.”
In response, the trust has launched an Anti-Bullying Ambassador Scheme which sees a group of staff equipped with the skills to support colleagues and the confidence to speak up to challenge poor behaviour. Freedom to Speak Up Guardians are also in place to encourage staff to raise concerns and tackle any barriers to them doing so.
In previous years data collected from the survey has prompted the introduction of staff mentoring.