EINF29901 Published September 2013 © NHS Employers 2013

Staff engagement in the NHS – Summer update 2013

Case study: Southern Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation TrustThe Southern Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has integrated its staff engagement approach with its overall engagement for improvement strategy.

The trust’s staff engagement approach includes ‘quality visits’, with discussions between trust leaders and members of staff around services. The discussions recognise good practice and offer the opportunity to discuss improvements. There are also listening events and directors are encouraged to shadow staff. There is visible support for this approach from senior leadership, including the chief executive, and the trust is developing a ‘values exchange survey tool’ which will enable real-time information on staff views and concerns.

Research and developments

Quality governance: How does a board know that its organisation is working effectively to improve patient care?

Monitor, the independent regulator for NHS foundation trusts has published a report focusing on what boards need to do to ensure quality, safety and provide patient care following the Francis report. The report has particular emphasis on issues around engaging staff. It recommends that boards:

“Seek out and review staff feedback, underpinned by regular board to staff engagement, the use of regular staff and patient surveys and to test the effectiveness of communication and trends over time. The trust can also use internal audit functions to test the extent of staff awareness and the use of performance information used by the board.”

The report also recommends that organisations undertake regular local staff surveys to identify staff concerns and that organisations have mechanisms which enable staff to raise issues.

Staff engagement case studies

All NHS trusts are facing major challenges in the current environment, and improving staff engagement can seem impractical in such conditions. But addressing staff engagement may be a key part of meeting wider challenges. Details of three trusts that are successfully addressing these issues are below.

Case study: Mid Yorkshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

The Mid Yorkshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust faces a number of financial challenges and has implemented a new approach to staff engagement.

The trust has a new visible leadership style and is involving clinician in more decisions and supporting line managers to take a more engaged approach

The trust has followed up on the national NHS staff survey with its own local survey and included some questions with the option to provide additional explanations via free text boxes. The survey received a higher response rate and provided a wealth of information, enabling the organisation to focus on key issues such as staffing levels in certain areas. The trust is also giving feedback on what it is able to take action on via the ‘you said, we listened’ model.

Case study: Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust secured the highest increase in the level of staff engagement in the 2012 staff survey.

The trust has improved engagement through more effective communication and appraisal. Communication improvements ranged from reinvigorating the team brief, to increasing the visibility of senior leaders and greater use of locally designed surveys. The trust reports back on issues raised and staff can see the purpose of giving feedback. It also ensures staff awareness and involvement with the key challenges facing the organisation. For example, it has ensured that staff understand the Cost Improvement Plans (CIPs) and their impact and feel able to influence them. This has helped to secure future savings.

The trust has improved the appraisal process to cover a range of objectives including behaviour, wellbeing, training, supervision and role responsibilities. It has revamped and simplified paperwork, run training, road tested forms and, most importantly, asked all the appraised members of staff for feedback. This new focus has helped improve feedback and staff confidence in the process.

Staff survey 2013 and the friends and family testWe are pleased to be able to confirm that the staff survey will be going ahead this year and, as in 2012, it will include a range of questions on staff engagement issues.

Staff responses to the staff survey question on whether staff would recommend the services of their organisation (sometimes known as the ‘friends and family test’) will be particularly important this year. NHS England has confirmed that results from this question will be used for the calculation of payments under the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) programme in 2014. This should help convince organisations of the importance of staff engagement.

For updates on this, please see the staff engagement web pages

Webinars

NHS Employers hosts regular webinars and is always looking into innovative ways to approach staff engagement.

Our most recent webinar looked at how organisations have begun to tackle the issue of staff advocacy and highlighted the key issues and challenges. A summary of the webinar is now available on the staff engagement latest news pages.

We have also been looking into how technology might help organisations tackle their staff engagement challenges. As part of this, we are pleased to be organising a webinar on 24 September with USA-based staff engagement experts SPARC, who have developed a unique range of technology tools to help foster and support recognition. More information is available at www.nhsemployers.org

Sources of advice and support

There are a range of organisations that can provide direct support and advice to trusts to help improve staff engagement.

NHS Employers is happy to provide advice and assistance on staff engagement issues, but not direct support. Two organisations that provide direct support are the Involvement and Participation Association, which focuses on partnership working, and Public World, which focuses on staff involvement for improved productivity. A number of trusts have also reported excellent results from using the ‘Listening into Action’ approach developed by Optimise Limited. For more information, please contact steven.weeks@nhsemployers.org

Engaging with medical staff

Models of medical leadership and their effectiveness; an exploratory study, National Institute for Health Research.

A research team, led by Professor Chris Ham of The King’s Fund, has published a report on behalf of the National Institute for Health Research. The report looks at ways to enhance medical leadership and explores how different trusts have sought to involve clinicians. The report also looks at the use of the Medical Engagement Scale as a tool for developing engagement.

The report can be found on our staff engagement latest new page. A summary of the scale and ideas for sustaining medical engagement can be found on the engaging medical staff pages on the NHS Employers website.