Solent NHS Trust scores strongly in 2023 NHS Staff Survey
The publication of the 2023 NHS Staff Survey results has today revealed that Solent NHS Trust has come top in its class for its compassionate and inclusive culture.
A considerable amount of positive results have been sustained from the previous 12 month period, underpinning Solent’s values-led culture.
The survey is one of the largest workforce surveys in the world and is carried out every year to improve staff experiences across the NHS, and is aligned to the NHS People Promise which tracks progress against the national ambition to make the NHS the best workplace it can be.
66.8% of employees at Solent completed the survey, with the organisation achieving improved results on 4 out of nine key themes of the People Promise whilst the remaining 5 themes have remained the same.
In actively encouraging everyone’s voice to be heard, the results offer Solent a more detailed understanding of employees’ experiences at work, including how supported and motivated they feel, and where meaningful changes can be made to make even bigger strides forward.
This year, there were four additional questions related to Solent being one of the organisations soon to join together to become Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, for which the work programme has been known as Project Fusion.
Solent NHS Trust Chief Executive, Andrew Strevens, says: “This year for Solent has been a period of real shift – with us continuing to work in an agile way to deliver great care for our service users across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight amidst sustained and complex pressures, but also intensely focused work to plan to be in the best position possible to become a new Trust and carry best practice forward.
“Throughout every strand of work, it is clear from the results how colleagues value teamwork, how working together really drives forward progress and continuous improvement for the benefit of patients and one another in the workplace. Our staff are dedicated, compassionate and dynamic.
“We have a strong values-led foundation which guides and inspire all our actions. People shared that they felt teams within Solent work well together to achieve objectives and team members often meeting to discuss their team’s effectiveness.
“Colleagues’ scores also improved around feeling that they were working to realistic time pressures and were able to talk to managers about working flexibly.”
However, there are clearly some of our colleagues feeling and experiencing things differently.
Andrew Strevens adds: “The results reveal the pockets of real change and potential, and where we can make long term meaningful improvements. I am committed to hearing people’s feedback and acting on it. A few examples include more work needing to be done around opportunities to develop people’s careers within the organisation, how appraisals help people improve how they do their job, along with improving people’s confidence in addressing concerns about unsafe clinical practice.
“Colleagues will soon be action planning at team engagement sessions, and I want to underpin my commitment to taking Solent’s staff survey results and the action plans forward into the new Trust, ensuring the knowledge and learning to date is not lost, and that the organisation and everyone employed within it can be their very best.”
Read our survey headline results.