Thread by @ChrisGrahamUK

I promised a thread on the NHS Staff Survey 2022. Here it comes... [1/15]
🧵 #NHSStaffSurvey #NHS @pickereurope

First: thank you to all of the 600,000+ staff who completed the survey, the largest published workforce survey in the world. It is a credit to the NHS and its leadership that we do employee feedback at this scale and with this level of transparency. [2/15]

What do the results show? Declines in morale, greater intention to leave, and - most alarmingly IMO - a steep drop in satisfaction with the standard of patient care. But many specific questions are actually steady or slightly improved. [3/15]

In the midst of strike action and a cost of living crisi, the first thing everyone will look at is pay satisfaction. It is grim: only 26% are 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with their level of pay - down from 33% in 2021 and 37% in 2020 [4/15]

The most interesting thing about pay satisfaction, IMO, is that the steepest drop is for medical and dental staff - down from 50% to 37%. That group tend to be more satisified with pay, and they remain so - but gap has narrowed. [5/15]

Intention to leave hasn't increased anywhere near as much as pay satisfaction has fallen, if that makes sense. But 1/3 staff "often" think of leaving - 32% in 2022 vs 31% in 2021. [6/15]

What really worries me is the question "if a friend or relative needed treatment, [would you] be happy with the standard of care provided by [your] organisation?" Only 63% agree - down 5% pts year-on-year and down 11% pts from 2020 [7/15]

Moreover, the proportion of staff who actively disagree with that statement - as opposed to saying they 'neither agree nor disagree' - is climbing - up to 13% in 2022 from 7% in 2020. That is very alarming, and... [8/15]

... There are declines in satisfaction with care standards across many professional groups, including medical/dental consultants (61%; down from 71% pre-pandemic) and trainees (55%; down from 69%) [9/15]

The other key advocacy question is whether staff would recommend their organisation as a place to work. That has fallen slower - from 59% in 2021 to 57% in 2022 - but that figure is far too low for comfort. [10/15]

One thing I was looking out for was burnout. This was a new set of questions in 2021 so 2022 gives us our first trend data and... it's pretty flat. There is no evidence of a substantial increase in burnout year-on-year... [11/15]

... and there's actually been a decent improvement in the proportion of staff reporting work-related stress. This is down 2% pts from 47% to 45% - albeit still well above pre-pandemic levels (2019: 40.5%) [12/15]

So there are some tentative positives. And there are generally good results about colleagues, team working, etc; my sense is that there is a feeling of community and shared experience here, which seems healthy [13/15]

Big take home message IMO is: staff are concerned about the standard of care. It's tempting to link this to elective backlogs & emergency waits - that's surely part of it - but the consistency of the finding is alarming & needs attention [14/15]

There is a lot, lot more detail in the findings than I can possibly summarise on Twitter. And the great news is that it is extensively published and available to explore. See nhsstaffsurveys.com for details [15/15]