The experiences of staff working in the NHS in England have improved across a range of important areas, according to the results of the world’s largest workforce survey.
Compared to the previous survey in 2022, staff are markedly more likely to say that they would recommend their organisation as a place to work; that they would be happy with the standard of care provided if a friend or relative needed treatment; and that they have the right support and resources to do their jobs. However, results for many key measures of staff experience remain below pre-COVID levels.
Results from the NHS Staff Survey, which was coordinated by the independent charity Picker on behalf of NHS England, included responses from more than 700,000 NHS staff working across more than 200 organisations. The survey included all directly employed staff in secondary and tertiary care organisations, ranging from consultants to care assistants and from porters to paramedics.
The survey showed large improvements in a range of important areas. Two headline measures that had fallen since 2020 showed signs of recovery: the proportion of staff who would recommend their organisation as a place to work jumped 3.7% points to 61.1%, while the 65.0% said that they would be happy with the standard of care provided by their organisation if a friend or relative needed treatment, a 2.0% point improvement on 2022. Results for both measures remain below the pre-COVID levels recorded in 2019, which were 63.4% and 71.5% respectively – but NHS providers will be encouraged by the scale of improvements in 2023.
Some of the most striking improvements in the survey were around workload and resources. After declines on most of these questions in 2021 and 2022, results are now equal to or higher than they were before the pandemic in 2019. For example, 46.7% of staff said that they are “able to meet all the conflicting demands on their time at work”; a 3.7% improvement from 2022, and 0.7% higher than in 2019.
There was an even bigger improvement in the proportion who said that there are enough staff in their organisation for them to do their job properly – up 6.0% points from 26.4% in 2022 to 32.4% in 2023.
Overall, satisfaction with pay improved by 5.6% points compared to 2022 – but remains low at 31.2%.
However, there has been a worsening trend of staff experiencing discrimination at the hands of colleagues and the public. In addition, only 56% of NHS staff feel their workplace acts fairly when it comes to career progression, regardless of protected characteristics.
Full results for the survey are available from www.nhsstaffsurveys.com.
