2014 National NHS Staff Survey – Results for St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust

  1. Introduction

The 2014 national NHS staff survey took place in all NHS organisations in the late autumn of 2014. As the range of questions asked remain consistent from year to year, it is possible to benchmark against previous years as well as performance alongside other trusts.

In the key overall engagement score, the trust has scored above average in 2014 at 2.76. This is of particular importance as the overall engagement score is used by Monitor and the CQC as a significant measure. The engagement score includes staff recommendation of the trust as a place to work or to receive treatment, where the trust also scores above average.

Although there has been very little significant movement in the trust’s scores compared to 2013, all of the movement that has occurred has been positive. There has been a worsening of the position for the comparator population of trusts and this means that St George’s is in a relatively positive position compared to last year.

In 2013 the trust was in the bottom 20% for 11 indicators. In 2014 it is in the bottom 20% for 6 indicators. It is in the best 20% for 2 indicators in 2014, compared to 1 in 2013. It is reasonable to draw comfort from the steadying of the trust’s position, but there remains significant work to do.

  1. Issues of note

This section sets out the issues that have been identified as of particular note in the context of work streams within the workforce and OD strategy action plan 2015.

2.1 Confidence to raise concerns

The trust is in the top 20% for staff agreeing that they would feel secure about raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice. This is a new question and in the context of the recent national ‘Speak up review’ likely to be seen as a key indicator. However, this contrasts with ratings in the worse than average category for members of staff witnessing and reporting potentially harmful errors or incidents.

2.2 Tackling poor behaviour and bullying

Trust performance has remained steady with 31% of staff saying that they have experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from staff in the past 12 months. Other large London teaching hospitals in London have similar scores, but several have also seen deterioration in the score from last year.

% of staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from staff in last 12 months / St George’s / Bart’s / GSTT / Imperial / King’s / Royal Free / UCLH
31%= / 34%↓ / 22%↑ / 31%↓ / 27%↓ / 31%= / 30%↓

The trust has a comprehensive programme to prevent bullying and to identify bullying and to tackle it where it occurs. Through investigations we are aware that members of staff have encountered bullying behaviour and we are taking formal action where such actions are known to have occurred. In its inspection in early 2014, the trust acknowledged that the trust was addressing the issues that the CQC brought to our attention.

The strategy to tackle bullying includes coaching and training for managers dealing with difficult staffing issues, tracking and following up the range of concerns that were raised in the CQC inspection and elsewhere, a poster campaign, the development of the LiAise service providing listening for members of staff and an opportunity to raise concerns, the bullying and harassment support line, which is run by the Staff Support Service.

2.3 Discrimination

The Trust position has remained the same with regard to members of staff reporting discrimination and is within the range for large London teaching trusts.

% of staff experiencing discrimination in the past 12 months / St George’s / Bart’s / GSTT / Imperial / King’s / Royal Free / UCLH
!9%= / 20%↓ / 19%↓ / 18%= / 20%↓ / 18%= / 18%↓

Of greatest concern is that 38% of black and minority members of staff report discrimination as compared to 14% of white members of staff. It is of further concern that 34% of black and minority members of staff report experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from members of staff in the last 12 months as compared to 29% of white members of staff. St George’s is establishing a ‘St George’s as One’ inclusion programme in 2015.

There has been an encouraging increase in members of staff who report having received equality and diversity training in the past six months, which can probably be attributed to the programme of Unconscious Bias workshops that was delivered to senior managers and clinicians in 2014. It is planned to further implement this programme of training this year.

2.4 Other issues

Although scoring well for the quality of appraisal, the trust has not made progress on members of staff’s perceptions of their immediate line managers. In terms of perceptions of work pressure and of effective team working, the trust needs to continue to work to support line managers to engage with their teams. With the appointment of a new Assistant Director of Education and Development, a leadership development programme that will be relevant to all levels of line management is being developed to be implemented in 2015.

3.0 Next steps

The 2015/16 workforce strategy action plan sets out a programme of work that will support the trust to respond to the issues raised in the staff survey.