People 

Our people - a strategic priority

Our ambition is for the Trust to be a great place to work, where our people have the right skills and values to deliver excellence in care. That is why we have made our people one of the Trust’s three strategic priorities.

The results from the 2016 annual national staff survey are encouraging and demonstrate that the Trust is improving at a more rapid pace than other trusts and, if this pace of improvement continues, we will be above average next year. However, we know there is much work to do to move us up from our average ranking in most areas when compared with other combined trusts.

The results of survey revealed significant improvements for the Trust and for the second year in a row we have achieved statistically significant improvements in a number of the key findings (12) the survey reports on.

The survey, carried out between October and December 2016, looked at 32 key findings and asked staff questions around engagement and involvement, health and wellbeing, appraisal and development and raising concerns. The survey was delivered to all staff and 53% (2997) of staff completed it, which is above the national average of just 42%.

We value staff feedback as these results will help us make further improvements for staff which will in turn deliver a better patient experience and outcomes for our patients and service users.

Some of the most impressive improvements this year were in those areas we identified as priorities last year so moving forward we will adopt a similar approach by focusing on the organisational priorities identified above. By supporting divisions to deliver improvements at a local level we are contributing to a better staff experience and overall working environment.

Organisational priorities for 2017

• improve the ability of staff to be able to contribute to improvements at work improve the quality of appraisals
• improve fairness and effectiveness of safety reporting
• improve the confidence of staff in raising concerns about unsafe clinical practices
• further reduce staff working extra hours
• improve communications between senior managers and staff