State of the provider sector
Workforce challenges and morale
Workforce concerns
FIGURE 11
Thinking about your workforce, how concerned are you about...
- Trust leaders have high levels of moderate to extreme concern about burnout (79%), and discrimination towards staff from patients and the public (77%), and morale (74%).
- Heavy workloads (66%) alongside additional periods of industrial action (64%) are also prominent concerns.
- Comments highlight efforts to address these issues through culture and wellbeing initiatives, anti-racism plans, and union engagement, but note broader social and political pressures are exacerbating strain.
How are you addressing concerns?
Visible leadership on the floor; Honest and open conversations in terms of our challenges; Organisation owned financial plan - we are all in this together; Journey to become an anti-racist organisation.
"The trust has strong, compassionate leadership on workforce related matters from the Chief Executive, Chief People Officer and wider Executive Team, strongly supported by our NEDs. Discrimination is regularly discussed and the Trust has action plans to address, with a focus on culture. The trust has taken highly effective action to reduce staff turnover, particularly in the first two years' of service. My main concern is staff workload and impact on morale/burnout due to under-investment / funding of community services to meet demand." Director, community trust
Confidence in the right number, quality and mix of (clinical and non-clinical) staff to deliver high quality healthcare now and in the future
FIGURE 12
How confident are you that your trust has the right numbers, quality and mix of (clinical and non-clinical) staff in place to deliver high quality healthcare to patients and service users now and in the future?
- 53% of trust leaders confident they have the right numbers, quality and mix of staff to deliver high quality healthcare, up from 40% last year. Worry has dropped to 30% from 42% last year.
- Confidence declines for one years’ time (39%), though it's improved since last year (25%). 40% were worried, which is down from 50% last year.
- Looking two years ahead, a third of trust leaders feel confident (33%), slightly higher than last year (29%). 46% of trust leaders said they are worried, down from 55% last year.
- Those that were not confident about their financial plan were markedly more worried about having adequate staff in one years’ time.