MEDIACIÓ I CONVIVÈNCIA

The Trust takes staff engagement very seriously. It is fundamental to delivering high quality clinical services and transformational change and it is regarded as a valuable indicator of organisational health and wellbeing. A range of two way feedback mechanisms, both formal and informal, are in place to encourage and enable the provision of information to and consultation with, employees. The Trust has significant challenges to overcome in the development of communications systems because of the 24/7 nature of the service against the context of a dynamic operating environment across four counties spanning a wide geographical area. A selection of the tools and methods developed to communicate and encourage meaningful, two way dialogue with staff includes:

❙ Open Board Meetings – with a public question opportunity;

❙ Chief Executive electronic Bulletin – weekly internal newsletter circulated to every member of staff;

❙ Corporate publication ‘twentyfourseven’ – external seasonal newsletter circulated to every member, all staff and stakeholders – a total of nearly 20,000 recipients;

❙ Corporate website – round the clock access to information or feedback with a different language facility;

❙ Email facilities which include 24/7 and remote access;

❙ Corporate independent annual Staff Survey – year on year learning and action planning from feedback;

❙ Corporate annual cycle of business – schedules of internal and external events and meetings encouraging two way dialogue;

❙ Electronic chat room sessions – open forums for staff Q&As with the Director team;

❙ Face to Face station meetings – Chief Executive, Chairman and Director visits held throughout the year;

❙ Union and Director team meetings – regular schedules to enable two way dialogue and partnership working;

❙ Responder Review newsletter – a publication for the hundreds of volunteers who carry out a fantastic role supporting the Trust and serving their local communities;

❙ Focus Groups – involved in a variety of Trust work such as survey action plans;

❙ Staff Suggestion Scheme – ideas for improvements with rewards;

❙ The Mercury newsletter – a publication for staff in the Urgent Care Service;

❙ The Point SPoA newsletter;

❙ Corporate publications – ‘Re-investing in Care’ booklet illustrating the Trust service developments and cost improvement programmes;

❙ Staff governors representing staff members;

❙ Right Care roadshows.

Feedback from the annual independent 2011 NHS Staff Survey shows that the Trust ranked amongst the highest ambulance services in the country for overall staff engagement.

The annual NHS Staff Survey is a mandatory requirement as part of the Trust’s registration with the CQC. It is designed to support and develop priority actions that deliver on the staff pledges contained within the NHS Constitution. These four pledges are:

❙ Staff Pledge 1 – the NHS commits to provide all staff with clear roles and responsibilities and rewarding jobs for teams and individuals that make a difference to patients, their families and carers and

communities.

❙ Staff Pledge 2 – the NHS commits to provide all staff with personal development, access to appropriate training for their jobs and line management.

❙ Staff Pledge 3 – the NHS commits to provide support and opportunities for staff to maintain their health, well-being and safety.

❙ Staff Pledge 4 – the NHS commits to engage staff in decisions that affect them and the services they provide, individually, through representative organisations and through local partnership working arrangements. All staff will be empowered to put forward ways to deliver better and safer services for patients and their families.

The Trust values the feedback and information provided by the annual independent NHS Staff Survey. It supports dialogue and engagement and provides a mechanism for identifying priority interventions to enhance staff health and wellbeing and organisational performance. Unlike the majority of other NHS Trusts, the Trust surveys the whole of its workforce each year not just a percentage. This demonstrates the Trust commitment to staff engagement which supports our ambition to become a model employer.

The table below summarises the key findings from the 2011 NHS Staff Survey, highlighting the highest and lowest four ranking scores from the 2010/11 and 2011/12 national NHS Staff Survey. These are benchmarked against national average scores for all ambulance services nationally.

National NHS Staff Survey Results 2010/11 and 2011/12

2010/11 2011/12

Trust Improvement /Deterioration Trust % National _{Average %} Trust % National _{Average %}

Response Rate 51% 54% 54% 54%

Increase of 3% (Improvement) In line with the national average

2010/11 2011/12

Trust Improvement /Deterioration Top 4 Ranking Scores Trust National _Average* Trust National _Average*

Fairness and effectiveness of incident reporting procedures**

(the higher the score the better)

3.39 3.08 3.31 3.11

Marginal decrease (deterioration) improved, remaining better than the national average

Staff recommendation of the Trust as a place to work or to receive treatment**

(the higher the score the better)

3.53 3.17 3.40 3.13

Marginal decrease (deterioration) remaining better than the reduced national average

% of staff appraised in the last 12 months

(the higher the score the better)

83% 69% 82% 67%

Decrease of 1% remaining 15% better than the reduced national average

% of staff able to contribute towards improvements at work

(the higher the score the better)

41% 37% 45% 35% Increase of 4% (improvement) 10% better than the reduced national average

* of Ambulance Trusts in England

** Scale summary scores between 1 and 5 - 1 is ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 is ‘strongly agree’

2010/11 2011/12

Trust Improvement /Deterioration Bottom 4 Ranking Scores Trust % National Average*

% Trust %

National Average* %

% of staff witnessing potentially harmful errors, near misses or incidents in the last month

(the lower the score the better)

31% 34% 35% 35%

Increase of 4% (deterioration) in line with the national average

% of staff feeling pressured in the last 3 months to attend work when feeling unwell

(the lower the score the better)

31% 31% 35% 34% Increase of 4% (deterioration) 1% above increased national average

% of staff suffering work related stress in the last 12 months

(the lower the score the better)

23% 30% 32% 33% Increase of 9% (deterioration) remains better than increased national average

% of staff having well structured appraisals in the last 12 months

(the higher the score the better) 21% 21% 20% 20%

Decrease of 1% (deterioration) in line with the national average

Feedback received from both the Care Quality Commission and from our survey providers, Quality Health, has been that we should be very pleased and proud of the positive feedback our staff have provided in this survey. Therefore, key priorities are assessed from our lowest scores, which although are the lowest ranking score for the Trust, remain in line with or better than the ambulance sector nationally.

Of the 38 key factors covered in the Staff Survey the Trust received 30 scores above average of all ambulance trusts, average scores against seven and there was one score that fell below the average of all ambulance trusts ‘staff witnessing potentially harmful errors, near misses or incidents in the last month’. In light of this, priority areas for improvement identified from the staff survey are:

Priority One - Key finding 20 - % of staff witnessing potentially harmful errors, near misses, or incidents in the last month - in this area we have a score of 35% against an ambulance average of 35%.

The Trust has a well developed and embedded incident reporting system which is well used by staff. The Trust encourages and supports staff to report errors or near misses in order to capture learning and improve services to our patients.

The action from this indicator will be to further develop analysis of incidents reported and work with the ambulance trust sector to identify areas of further improvement.

Priority Two - Key finding 29 - % of staff feeling pressure in the last three months to attend work when feeling unwell - the score against this indicator is 1% above the national ambulance trust average. Absence management is a strong focus within the Trust in order to ensure that effective and supportive mechanisms are in place.

Further staff wellbeing information on healthy lifestyles, post incident support and welfare and routine screening for health awareness, is planned during 2012/13. This work will seek to improve personal responsibility for health and wellbeing and encourage staff to keep well.

Priority Three - Key finding 18 - % of staff suffering work related stress in the last 12 months - the score against this indicator is 1% below the national average for ambulance trusts. Work related stress is an

identified priority for the Trust as part of the overall employee wellbeing and attendance at work programme. Post traumatic support for staff following major or critical incidents has been strengthened through

improvements to duty officer rotas and is further supported by external intervention for warm debriefing sessions and personal counselling and support.

The Trust is further reviewing its Occupational Health provision and support to strengthen the employee assistance programme.

Priority Four - Key finding 13 - % of staff having a well structured appraisal in the last 12 months - in this area we have a score of 20% which is in line with the national average for ambulance trusts.

The Trust has a very high level of achievement against the delivery of annual appraisals, however the effectiveness of these appraisals is average compared with other ambulance trusts. The review of the Knowledge, Skills, Framework (KSF) appraisal system is ongoing, with plans to develop a more Trust focused approach.

The implementation of these priority areas for action will be overseen by the Executive Director of Human Resources and Governance, with input from the Trust’s Union and relevant staff working groups to ensure a bottom up approach.

A quarterly monitoring report will be received by the Quality and Governance Committee as part of the overall Human Resources and Governance performance report.

The Trust has a Communications and Involvement Strategy to ensure that staff:

❙ Are able to influence staff involvement in making decisions about service delivery, quality, improvement and proposals for change;

❙ Can give feedback – staff giving their managers their opinions and ideas which can influence decision making;

❙ Can receive information – staff are informed of issues in the organisation and are required to give others information about their activities.

During 2011/12 the Trust:

❙ Held regular strategy away days with resultant action planning;

❙ Held a number of electronic two way conversation chat rooms;

❙ Published staff information and articles in the weekly Chief Executive’s Bulletin;

❙ Held regular meetings with union officials;

❙ Held face to face station meetings led by the Chief Executive, Chairman and Executive Directors;

❙ Highlighted a ‘policy of the week’ in the Chief Executive’s Bulletin, reinforcing the policies which protect and advise staff of their responsibilities and their rights.