Bolton NHS Trust staff, of which Royal Bolton Hospital is a part of, feel like they are making a difference and enjoying working there - and hospital bosses say they are addressing concerns raised in the annual NHS Staff Survey such as 'feeling safe to raise concerns' and addressing 'burnout' amongst staff.

Staff at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust  shared their experiences of working for the trust through the national survey that aims to drive improvements across the NHS.

Staff were asked how they feel about their work and questions covered a wide range of topics including  'speaking up', 'learning and development'.

Positive responses included in staff feeling as they were making a 'difference' whilst ethnic background discrimination was felt among some staff.

This year the trust's response rate to the survey was 41.5 per cent with 2,518 members of staff completing the NHS Staff Survey – which is said to be the one of the largest workforce surveys in the world.

This is a six per cent increase on the Trust’s 2022 response rate.

The survey is designed to give a picture of what trusts are like as a place to work and receive care - and to help organisations gain an insight into how staff feel about culture, their wellbeing, levels of engagement and motivation, equality, diversity and inclusion, safety and quality of care at their place of work.

There were positive findings within the survey which showed 84 per cent of staff enjoy working with the colleagues in their team and 89 per cent of staff feel their role is making a difference to patients and service users.

Staff morale has also risen within the trust with staff rating the trust as a 5.91 on the 0-10 scale.

However, the results also highlight a number of key areas that require improvement and show that:

  • 59 per cent of staff would recommended the organisation as a place to work – this is close in line with last year’s figures.
  • 61 per cent of staff would recommend the standard of care provided if their friend or relative needed treatment – this is also close in line with last year’s figures.
  • 61 per cent feel safe to speak up about anything that concerns them.
  • 71 per cent of staff felt like the organisation acts on concerns raised by patients and service users – this has decreased from 75 per cent in 2022.
  • Just over a third of staff say they feel burnt out, a slight increase on the previous year

When staff were asked ‘does your organisation act fairly with regard to career progression / promotion, regardless of ethnic background, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or age?’ 54 per cent of staff said yes in 2023, which was a drop from 60 per cent in 2022.

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When surveyed about feeling ‘safe’ to speak up about ‘anything that concerns me in this organisation’ there was a drop in staff saying yes, from 66 per cent in 2022 to 61 per cent in 2023.

Staff were also asked about experiencing discrimination within the trust, this included ethnic background and disability.

  • On what grounds have you experienced discrimination? - Ethnic background: Figures were up from 39 per cent in 2022 to 48 per cent in 2023.
  • On what grounds have you experienced discrimination? – Disability: Figures were up from 10 per cent in 2022 to 12 per cent in 2023.

Fiona Noden, Chief Executive at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, thanked staff for completing the survey and addressed them in a statement, saying: “I know just what it would have taken for you to give up your precious time to complete the survey and our commitment in return is to make sure that we act on what you have told us.

“Some of the results confirm to us that we have more work to do when it comes to things like fair career progression, feeling safe to raise concerns and people feeling burnout or emotionally exhausted.

“We want our organisation to be the one where every single person has a good experience and are working through the results line by line to help guide what we do next.”

Dr. Niruban Ratnarajah, Chair at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our results reflect a decrease in the number of staff who would recommend this as a place to work or receive treatment and we are giving this our urgent attention to understand more and address this as a priority.

“The immeasurable sense of teamwork we see and feel in Bolton every single day is reflected in some of the feedback.

“In particular, the strong personal attachment our staff feel to their team and the support they get from their line managers.

“Feedback like this will continue to help us understand what’s making a difference and support others to do more of this in their teams.

“We will continue to encourage our staff to speak up if there’s something that could be done to improve their working lives.”

A full review of the Trust’s 2023 results is underway, and actions will be developed to address them at every level across the organisation.

Some areas of key focus have already been identified and they include:

  • The scores for people recommending the trust as a place to work or receive treatment.
  • Improving culture and making sure all staff understand what is expected when it comes to values and behaviours.
  • Making further improvements to the processes in place for speaking up.
  • Accelerating the trust’s equality, diversity and inclusion programme.

The Trust’s full results can be found here:  https://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/.

If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at chloe.wilson@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on X @chloewjourno.