NEAS A SAFER, HEALTHIER, BETTER PLACE TO WORK

Significant improvements have been made to the North East Ambulance Service over the last four years, according to the latest staff survey.

NEAS is the top-rated ambulance service in England for promoting a safety culture; promoting health and wellbeing for staff; and for morale and staff engagement.

Among the key findings in the survey were:

• Staff who looked forward to coming to work rose by almost a quarter;

• the people who were enthusiastic about their job rose by 23%;

• those who would recommend the Trust as a place to work rose by 17%;

• 23% of those surveyed said their manager gave them clear feedback about their work;

• there was a reduction of 15% in the number of staff who felt unwell because of work-related stress;

• there was an increase by almost a quarter for those staff who felt secure about raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice;

• more than a fifth of staff said they were given feedback about changes made in response to reported errors, near misses and incidents; and

• 56% of staff would recommend NEAS as a place to work and 4 in 5 would be happy if a friend or relative had to be cared by us.

Chief executive Yvonne Ormston said:

“Improvements have been made thanks to the hard work and commitment of everyone at NEAS.

“It’s a real achievement to be the top-rated ambulance service in England for key areas of our work.

“It’s also important that staff feel valued and we make sure it’s a good and fulfilling place to work.”

But the survey also shows that more needs to be done to stop staff feeling under pressure to come to work; to improve communication and feedback between senior managers and staff; and increase the number of people who are satisfied with flexible working opportunities.

In all, 49% of staff responded to the survey which covered 10 main themes:  equality, diversity and inclusion; health and wellbeing; immediate managers; morale; quality of appraisals; quality of care; safe environment – bullying and harassment; safe environment – violence; safety culture; and staff engagement.

The NHS staff survey is an annual survey which provides employees with the opportunity to have their say about their workplace and informs the Trust about areas for improvement and help it to implement change and improvement in the coming year.