A national survey of NHS staff has shown considerable improvements across a substantial range of areas on the Isle of Wight.
Alan Sheward, Executive Director of Nursing and Workforce, at Isle of Wight NHS Trust said: “We employ around 3,000 full and part-time staff in a very wide range of roles – from those who provide front line care to those who provide essential support services. We recognise the contribution staff bring to patients, relatives and visitors at very difficult times in their lives. Care and treatment is as much about the way it is delivered which is why we are concentrating on staff delivering the highest standards of compassionate care. We are committed to supporting them to do this.
“We need to ensure that all our staff are engaged with our vision of quality care for everyone, every time and feel that they can contribute to service development. The results of the 2012 staff survey indicate that we are on the right track with the improvements we are making to services for patients and staff and the way that we are approaching the changes. We do however need to do even better.
“The Trust Board at its meeting in public on 27th February received a presentation from Dr Reg Race from Quality Health. We will be analysing the results closely and incorporating the action we need to take into our business plans for 2013/14 and beyond. This will include repeating our major staff engagement exercise, the BIG Discussion, which we undertook between July and September 2012.”
The survey was conducted in September and October 2012 by Quality Health, the largest provider of staff surveys to the NHS. The survey of staff on the Island was split into three areas to reflect and enable comparisons with services on the mainland:
· Acute hospital sector – 432 staff participated representing a response rate of 54%
· Mental health sector – 208 staff participated representing a response rate of 53%
· Ambulance sector – 75 staff participated representing a response rate of 53%
Copies of the surveys can be found at www.iow.nhs.uk/surveys or at www.nhsstaffsurveys.com.
Compared to national averages and when looking at the difference between responses to the 2011 and 2012 surveys the 2012 survey of staff who work for Isle of Wight NHS Trust shows that in many areas working on the Isle of Wight is better or has improved.
