Kevin McGee, Chief Executive of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Staff at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust believe care of patients is the organisation’s top priority, according to the latest NHS Staff Survey.
Results of the major annual survey, carried out across organisations and NHS staff around the country to benchmark performance and help measure staff satisfaction across a range of topics, have now been made public.
For the 2020 survey, a record number of staff at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals took part, despite the pressures of the Covid pandemic.
Highlights include that 79% of staff believe care of patients / service users is the organisation’s top priority (compared to 74% in 2019), that 69% of staff would be happy with the standard of care if a friend or relative needed treatment (compared to 63% in 2019) and that 68% would recommend it as a place to work (vs 62% in 2019).
In total, 91% of staff believed that their role makes a difference to patients (higher than the national average and equal to the Trust’s 2019 result).
Kevin McGee, Trust Chief Executive, has welcomed the findings and thanked the record levels of staff for taking part at such a difficult time.
He explained: “The annual survey is a great way of benchmarking our performance against other NHS organisations across the country, and to highlight any specific areas we as a Trust need to focus on.
“It really is a testament to our staff that, even during the immense pressures of the pandemic, record numbers took the time to engage with the survey and let us know their thoughts.
“It’s great to see that staff have such a strong belief in our commitment to providing safe and high quality care to our patients and that they go to work knowing they are making a difference to patients.”
The Trust’s response rate was 49.5 per cent, which means 3,548 staff members took the opportunity to have their say and influence the way the Trust is run. This is above the national average and compares to 46.9 per cent for the Trust’s 2019 survey results.
Staff were asked a range of questions based on ten themes, which included equality and diversity, health and wellbeing, quality of care and safety culture. In eight of the themes, the Trust was either above or at the national average. In two – health and wellbeing, and safe environment – violence – the Trust was slightly below average.
Compared to the Trust’s own results from 2019, there was no theme that saw a deterioration.
Kevin McGee added: “It will be our job now to study the results and ensure we are learning from them, and to engage with our staff every step of the way as we continue our journey of improvement.”
The national results can be seen here.