Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s revolutionary ‘real time’ staff experience programme – the first of its kind in the NHS - is helping the trust build happy, healthy and productive teams.
Northumbria Healthcare has long made ‘experience’ a priority both for staff and patients and its staff experience programme follows on from its nationally recognised, multi award winning, patient experience work.
As one of the North East’s biggest employers, the innovative programme uses real-time data to show how supported, engaged and satisfied people feel at work; identifying areas for improvement.
Working in partnership with the Open Lab at Newcastle University, Northumbria Healthcare is using innovative software to survey and ‘temperature check’ the well-being of its staff.
To make this happen, the trust checks in with all staff at regular points throughout the year, through short surveys, to get a broad understanding of that is going on across the organisation.
They also work closely with individual teams to get a deep understanding of good practice, successes and areas that need improvement.
The results so far speak for themselves. In a 36-point survey used by the trust, nearly all domains of staff experience were statistically better in December 2019 compared to December 2018. The staff experience survey showed that 33 items had improved for the better with only 3 remaining the same as the year before. This included a 9% increase in people’s likelihood to recommend Northumbria as a place to work (now 81%) and 90% of staff now agree that the number one priority of the organisation is on patient care.
The improvements that have been evident in the local results have also been replicated in Northumbria Healthcare’s performance in the 2019 NHS Staff Survey.
76% of staff completed the national survey, achieving the best response rate in the country – the average response rate is 45%.
Northumbria’s staff experience ranked first among acute and community trusts (out of 48), first among all acute only trusts (out of 86) and was placed joint top alongside Cambridgeshire Community Services, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and Kent Community Health NHS trusts.
The trust achieved the highest scores nationally for equality, diversity and inclusion, health and wellbeing and staff morale.
Annie Laverty, chief experience officer at Northumbria Healthcare said: “There is a strong link between happy and healthy teams and the quality of care we provide. By regularly checking in with our staff we can fully understand their thoughts and expectations as well as use this information to help our teams to reach their full potential.
“The knock-on effect of this will mean our patients receive the best possible care."
If you would like to learn more about Northumbria’s staff experience programme contact: [email protected].