About the NHS Staff Survey
The NHS Staff Survey is one of the largest workforce surveys in the world and has been conducted every year since 2003. It provides an opportunity for organisations to continuously survey their staff in a consistent and systematic manner. This makes it possible to build up a picture of staff experience, compare and monitor change over time, and to identify variations between different staff groups. Obtaining feedback from staff, and taking account of their views and priorities, is vital for driving improvements in the NHS.The results are primarily intended to be used by organisations to help review and improve staff experience. The Care Quality Commission will use the results from the survey to monitor ongoing compliance with essential standards of quality and safety. The survey will also support accountability of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to Parliament for delivery of the NHS Constitution.
Users of staff survey data require results that are broken down by multiple demographics and responses to other key questions. This new intersectional reporting tool allows them to analyse and present results in chart/table format for all measures within the survey, split by the results of two separate sub-groups (both demographic and other non-demographic questions). For example, a breakdown of results for a question split by both ethnicity and occupation group.
These new dashboards will be publicly available online, sitting alongside the existing dashboards, which will continue to be available (here), although the original dashboards will be phased out before 2023 data is published. The new dashboards report at national, regional, ICS and organisational levels and they cover score, sub-score and question level results (in line with the existing dashboards).
More information about the NHS Staff Survey is included below and can also be found on the NHS Staff Survey website: https://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com.
More information about the survey
Analysis and reporting: For a brief overview of the survey and the reporting outputs available from the NHS Staff Survey 2022, please refer to the basic guide. For help with interpreting outputs produced for 2022, please refer to the Technical Guide. Both guides can be found here: https://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/survey-documents/.
Participation: All NHS trusts are required to participate in the survey. ICBs, CSUs, Social Enterprises and other organisations can choose to undertake the survey on a voluntary basis. In 2022, all participating organisations had to conduct a full census of all eligible staff. A total of 215 NHS trusts participated in the survey as well as 49 additional organisations.
Eligibility: All full and part-time staff who were directly employed by the organisation on 1st September 2022 were eligible to participate in the survey. This includes staff on all types of substantive contracts. It also includes some staff on secondment to a different organisation, under certain conditions, and those hosted by the participating organisation if they are on the payroll of the participating organisation. In addition, staff on sickness absence up to 12 months and staff employed by an NHS organisation working on secondment within another NHS organisation for more than 12 months were also included. For the full list of eligibility criteria please see Appendix A of the Technical Guide of the 2022 Staff Survey Data document, which is available here.
Sampling: Samples were drawn on 1st September 2022.
Fieldwork: Questionnaires and reminders were sent to staff between September and early December 2022. Staff were sent an email with a link to the online survey or a paper invitation along with a paper questionnaire. Paper invitations included a QR link to the online survey. All organisations were required to have a minimum period of 8 weeks of fieldwork.
Responses: On average, around 2,900 staff members per trust responded to the survey, resulting in a total of 612,129 responses from NHS trusts and a response rate of 45.3% (47.9% in 2021). Across all organisations there were a total of 636,348 responses and a response rate of 45.9% (47.9% in 2021). Across all organisations there were a total of 636,348 responses and a response rate of 45.9% (48.3% in 2021).
Score calculations: Each People Promise element score and theme score is based on two to four sub-scores (except for 'We are recognised and rewarded' which has no sub-scores) with each sub-score calculation dependent on the responses given to between one and nine questions.
The People Promise element scores, theme scores and sub-scores - are scored on a 0-10 point scale and reported as mean scores, where a higher score always equates to a more positive outcome. To achieve a 0-10 point scale for these measures, all responses for the contributing questions are re-scored to fit this scale. Details of how the responses are scored for each of the questions is included in section 3 of the Technical Guide, which is available here.
Weighting: To make one organisation's scores more comparable with other organisations of the same type, individuals' scores within each organisation (with the exception of ICBs, CSUs, social enterprises and community surgical services) are weighted so that the occupational group profile of the organisation reflects that of a typical organisation of its type.
For comparisons to previous years, the data has been re-weighted according to the 2022 occupation group weights. In addition to the occupation group weights, aggregate results are weighted by the size of the organisation in each year, so that each organisation's contribution to national, regional and ICS results is based on how large their organisation is, rather than the number of responses they received.
The data are weighted, except for the response rates and those questions where weighting does not apply. Certain questions are not weighted or benchmarked as they ask for demographic or other information.
For more details regarding the different methods used for weighting data please refer to section 6 of the Technical Guide of the Technical Guide, which can be found here.
Benckmarking: Organisations are assigned to a benchmarking group based on the services they offer. This means that comparisons are only made between organisations of a similar type and ensures comparisons are fair.
Trusts participating in the survey are assigned to one of the below benchmarking groups depending on the services they provide:
- Acute and Acute & Community Trusts
- Acute Specialist Trusts
- Mental Health & Learning Disability and Mental Health, Learning Disability & Community Trusts
- Community Trusts
- Ambulance Trusts
Benchmarking groups for organisations that participate voluntarily are also detailed in section 5 of the Technical Guide, which can be found here.