The importance of capturing the opinions of the entire NHS workforce
The NHS is the largest employer in Europe - employing over 1.3million people as of 2022. In this article, we share why flexibility is of paramount importance to the immediate future of the NHS and look at key data metrics coming from the recent NHS Staff Survey, signifying an undoubtedly higher demand for more flexible working across the NHS. We tie in how our own follow-up on the NHS Staff Survey presents a great reason for NHS Trusts to communicate with their entire workforce and how with Locum’s Nest Community NHS organisations are best positioned to communicate with their NHS workforce through staff surveys, bulletins and key leadership messages - to ultimately improve staff engagement and gather opinions from all NHS staff.
All NHS staff voices require listening to
The results from the NHS Staff Survey 2021 highlight important themes on staff engagement, flexibility and morale, with the workforce requiring more of a say in how the NHS engages with them. For example, an average of only 53.9% said they are satisfied with the opportunities they have for flexible working, a decrease of 3% from 2020. The decline was significantly steeper for a range of healthcare professionals on the frontline including medics, nurses and ambulance staff. Moreover, an average of only 44.4% said their organisation is committed to helping them balance their work and home life, meaning there is a central issue to enacting flexible working in the NHS. This means that more than 1 in 2 feel as though their organisation should be doing more to provide a better work-life balance. It is important to note this does not include the opinions of staff members on the NHS staff bank, meaning a variety of key opinions are not being heard and followed up on.
We decided to follow up on the NHS Staff Survey results by leveraging Locum’s Nest Community to ask our mobile app users about their experiences with the NHS Staff Survey. To do so we published a poll on our mobile app, used by 50,000 healthcare professionals across the UK. No individual is forced to read or answer the poll. But, it does provide the choice, key to wellbeing. Alternatively, if it was not a convenient time, they could save it and come back to it later, subsequently having a positive knock-on effect on staff engagement. In our poll, over 50% of respondents across all healthcare professions said that they didn’t remember being invited to complete the survey this year, suggesting more needs to be implemented to capture and listen to the opinions of everyone.
It gets more interesting as 67% of respondents thought bank members’ voices aren’t being heard. Yet, out of that 67%, 60% were also permanent staff members, meaning they would have received an invitation to fill in the NHS Staff Survey by their healthcare organisation. However, it is clear that healthcare professionals know from their personal experience that their colleagues who are working less than full time or who are not permanent staff members are very rarely heard and missed in the communications loop. . As flexible working continues to become more commonplace, this is something the NHS needs to work on and get right to ensure equity across the board. This clearly demonstrates the benefits of communicating with the entire workforce; whether they are substantive staff, flexible workers, or a mix of both. By not doing so, many opinions and thoughts of a large proportion of staff are being missed.
The boost collaboratives bring to flexible working
One solution to enhance flexible working is through collaboration - where NHS Trusts can work together to share a larger pool of healthcare professionals. For example, when Dr Ahmed Shahrabani co-founded Locum’s Nest in 2015, he wanted to continue building his medical career but would have had to continue working for three full days per week - simply not possible when setting up Locum’s Nest.
Unfortunately, there isn’t anything existing centrally to support healthcare professionals who want to commit to less than 3 days a week in the NHS. There are countless healthcare professionals just like Ahmed, who commit to other career interests outside of the NHS and can help out by taking bank shifts a few times a month, or once a week for example. Unfortunately, several NHS Trusts are missing out on a large pool of workers that are qualified and willing to sign up for bank shifts and work flexibly.
One way to encourage flexible working naturally, quickly and sustainably is through collaborative staff banks, such as The Digital Collaborative Bank, where NHS Trusts can come together and share their pool of workers with neighbouring NHS organisations. Historically, some NHS organisations fear losing staff when collaborating. But, our data shows that for one extra shift a doctor works collaboratively, they work an additional three at their own trust (parent organisation / primary staff bank), serving as good news because staff bank fill rates increase up to 15% as soon as Trusts join a collaborative bank. Training healthcare professionals takes years, but if NHS Trusts collaborate it's almost like turning a switch on to give an organisation a larger pool of workers that can work when and where they like. Even better when targeted messages can be sent to different teams, departments and sites to ensure the right message reaches the right person at the right time - super beneficial in collaboratives, ensuring everyone, whether working 1 or 20 shifts a month can be kept informed.
How to best support flexible workers
Flexible working demands from employees are on the rise, with 71% currently willing to leave their job for more flexibility, according to Molly Johnson-Jones, Co-Founder of Flexa Careers, the official company certifying companies as flexible. Moreover, recent NHS Staff Survey results found that 31% often think about leaving the NHS, whilst 16.6% said they will leave this organisation as soon as they can find another job. An increase in flexible working options could certainly help boost the wellbeing of NHS staff, whilst there is a burning desire for increased flexibility across the NHS. Moreover, this is a large proportion of staff the NHS can simply not afford to lose! But when it comes to flexible working, communication and building a community should be a top priority.
It comes back to increasing the engagement of healthcare professionals and ensuring all voices are listened to, made simpler with Locum’s Nest Community. It came about when the Covid-19 pandemic hit as a key digital touchpoint, to not only ensure healthcare professionals were kept in the loop but also to experience a form of human connection. For example, it enabled managers to share crucial information such as PPE changes and risk assessment surveys with frontline staff instantly. But since then, it has bought around a huge variety of communications, like newsletters, surveys, onboarding tips, bulletins, videos and so much more. All of these resources come into one place for healthcare professionals, making it simple and stress-free, whilst enhancing wellbeing. It is an efficient way for anyone working flexibly to keep in the loop and form a tightly knit social network within the NHS, bridging the gap between management and the clinical workforce.
This enhanced level of communication has continued to be embraced and remains a day-to-day part of people management for admin users. Healthcare professionals have fed back that this makes them feel more a part of the Trust, regardless of the regularity of shifts they take.
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If you would like to know more about how your organisation can gather the thoughts and opinions of your total workforce, with the support of Locum’s Nest award-winning technology, please get in touch with our Co-Founder, Dr Ahmed Shahrabani at ahmed@locumsnest.co.uk.