17 March 2010
Staff at Epsom, St Helier and Sutton hospitals are feeling increasingly satisfied with their jobs and are enthusiastic about coming to work, according to the results of a national survey, published today (17 March).
The Care Quality Commission's 2009 annual staff survey, which is now in its seventh year, has been designed to find out how staff feel about their work and the organisation they work for. With 468 members of our staff taking part in the survey, the Trust's response rate was in the top 20% of hospitals across the country, and the results show that we are performing well in a number of key areas.
For example, 90% of our staff feel that their role makes a difference to patients and in relation to the quality of patient care that staff are able to deliver, the Trust continued to perform better than other trusts of a similar size (76% of staff agreed they were satisfied with the quality of care given to patients).
And the survey shows that our staff enjoy work, with 84% of staff agreeing that they have an interesting job - placing the Trust in the top 20% for all hospitals in the country. Staff at the Trust are more motivated (where five represented highly motivated, the Trust scored an average of 3.9), and have lower stress levels than other staff in similar sized trusts. These positive results are helping to improve staff retention levels and less staff this year intend to leave the Trust compared to previous years.
Michael Burden, the Trust's Director of Human Resources said: "We are very pleased with the results of the latest staff survey - not only do they show that people enjoy working here but that they feel supported by their managers as they do so.
"We know that it is the hard work and commitment of our staff that makes the Trust the success that it is, so it's fantastic news that staff members feel valued and supported in their roles."
The results of the survey are split into 40 areas, known as key findings. For the majority of the survey, the Trust was rated as at or above average by staff. However, as with other trusts, there is room for improvement too.
Michael said: "This survey has been designed to show us exactly how our staff are feeling about work, and although there are some incredibly positive findings, there are some aspects that we need to look at and build upon.
"One of the areas we will be looking closely at is the number of work related injuries, which is currently above the national average. However, we have one of the highest levels of staff (84%) undergoing health and safety training, and we hope that this will help to significantly reduce the number of incidents. In addition to that, each directorate has a dedicated health and safety working group, who are currently working to identify how we can further improve our work in this area."
