‘Compassionate and inclusive’ – Positive news for SCFT in latest NHS Staff Survey results

Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust (SCFT) staff recognised the Trust as being a compassionate and inclusive place to work in the national NHS Staff Survey 2021.

SCFT received its highest ever response rate, an impressive 73% - an increase of 10% compared to 2020, representing 3,886 colleagues completing the survey.

The results published today, Wednesday 30 March 2022, show that SCFT’s scores have largely remained consistent with last year with positive highlights in key areas.

Compassionate culture, compassionate leadership, diversity, equality, and inclusion answers scored the highest for the Trust. Since 2020, SCFT has introduced ‘it’s about race training’, started an ‘over 50s group’ and a ‘wellbeing and inclusion forum’, as well as achieving the highest possible Disability Confident Leader status. Building on these positive Staff Survey results SCFT will continue embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion even further across the organisation.

SCFT’s most improved scores since 2020 related to staff’s support from their managers. There was a significant increase in staff saying their managers cared about their concerns, valued their work, gave clear feedback, and asked for their opinion before making decisions that affected their work. Additional support has been introduced, such as the Healthy Teams Resource and development opportunities for managers which is likely to have contributed to this result.

Staff said that SCFT takes positive action in relation to health and wellbeing. Initiatives such as support helplines for staff, psychological support for teams, health checks for staff most at risk of COVID-19, and the ‘health and wellbeing passports’ have clearly made a tangible difference.

However, there is always more work to do. 2021 was a challenging year as the pandemic continued to put pressure on services. SCFT has played a pivotal role in the Sussex vaccination programme. Our large-scale vaccination centres, school immunisation teams and roving teams, who visited care homes and people in their own homes, have given nearly one million vaccinations so far. Although the Trust scored above average for questions relating to work pressures compared to other Community Trusts, the results of the NHS Staff Survey reveal that staff unsurprisingly felt this pressure.

Looking ahead, SCFT is committed to making career development, education and learning opportunities more widely available and accessible for all staff in response to the survey results while further enhancing staff support and wellbeing.

Caroline Haynes, Chief People Officer at SCFT commented: “We have heard from more staff than ever in the latest NHS Staff Survey and I am so pleased to see that we have performed well yet again in key areas. Our relentless focus on staff health and wellbeing and being a compassionate and inclusive workplace will ultimately only improve the experience of both our staff and the patients we care for.”

Siobhan Melia, Chief Executive at SCFT said: “Delivering compassionate care is one of our core values at SCFT and I am delighted that our colleagues feel like we’re achieving this. It is evident that our staff live and breathe our Trust’s values with our patients who are at the heart of what we do. A huge thank you to everyone who shared their views. They are a vital part of making SCFT a fulfilling place to work for us all.”

See the full 2021 NHS Staff Survey results.