National Health Service National Staff Survey, 2010

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Background The Commission for Health Improvement (CHI), in conjunction with the Department of Health (DH), appointed Aston University to develop and pilot a new national National Health Service (NHS) staff survey, commencing in 2003, and to establish an advice centre and web site to support that process. Administration of the programme was taken over by the Healthcare Commission in time for the 2004 series. On the 1st April 2009, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was formed which replaced the Healthcare Commission (users should note that some of the surveys in the series conducted prior to this date will still be attributed to the Healthcare Commission). In 2011 the Department of Health took over management of the survey. Since 2013 NHS England (NHSE) have been in charge of the survey programme. Researchers at Aston University were responsible for the initial development of the survey questionnaire instrument, and for the setting up of the NHS National Staff Survey Advice Centre. From 2011, Picker Institute Europe took over from Aston University as survey contractors. All organisations concerned worked in partnership to consult widely with NHS staff about the content of the new national survey. The work was conducted under the guidance of a stakeholder group, which contained representatives from the staff side, CQC, DH, human resources directors, Strategic Health Authorities and the NHS workforce. Aims and conduct of the survey The purpose of the annual NHS staff survey is to collect staff views about working in their local NHS trust. The survey has been designed to replace trusts' own annual staff surveys, the DH '10 core questions', and the HC 'Clinical Governance Review' staff surveys. It is intended that this one annual survey will cover the needs of HC, DH and trusts. Thus, it provides information for deriving national performance measures (including star ratings) and to help the NHS, at national and local level, work towards the 'Improving Working Lives' standard. The design also incorporates questions relating to the 'Positively Diverse Programme'. Trusts will be able to use the findings to identify how their policies are working in practice. The survey enables organisations, for the first time, to benchmark themselves against other similar NHS organisations and the NHS as a whole, on a range of measures of staff satisfaction and opinion. From 2013, the NHS Staff Survey went out to all main trust types - social enterprises, clinical commissioning groups and clinical support units were able to opt themselves in to the survey. Organisations were allowed to conduct the survey electronically and to submit data for an entire census or extended sample of their organisation. Previously the sample was restricted to 850 staff. The collection of data (i.e. the survey fieldwork) is conducted by a number of independent survey contractors (see documentation for individual survey information). The contractors are appointed directly by each NHS trust in England and are required to follow a set of detailed guidance notes supplied by the Advice Centre (see web site link above), which covers the methodology required for the survey. For example, this includes details on how to draw the random sample, the requirements for printing of questionnaires, letters to be sent to respondents, data entry and submission. At the end of the fieldwork, the data are then sent to the Advice Centre. From the data submitted, each participating NHS trust in England receives a benchmarked 'Feedback Report' from the Advice Centre, which also produces (on behalf of the Department of Health) a series of detailed spreadsheets which report details of each question covered in the survey for each participating trust in England, and also a 'Key Findings' summary report covering the survey findings at national level. Further information about the survey series and related publications are available from the Advice Centre web site (see link above). As in previous years, the 2010 survey contained different versions of the core questionnaire for each of the four main sectors (acute, ambulance, mental health and primary care). The majority of the content is the same across the different versions of the core questionnaire but there are a few sector-specific questions. A few questions were dropped and some added for 2010 - see Appendix 9 of the Guidance Notes document for details of changes. Main Topics:Topics covered in the survey include: work-life balance; appraisal; training, learning and development; team working; health and safety; errors and incidents witnessed; job characteristics and arrangements; management and supervision; perceptions of organisation worked for; harassment, bullying and violence; and respondents' demographic characteristics.Sector-specific questions include: (acute) - infection control; (ambulance) - communication and distance between trust headquarters and ambulance stations; safe working environment; (mental health) - mental health specific training; partnership working.