Hinchingbrooke Health Care

About Hinchingbrooke

History of the Trust

The Trust Board

Equality and Diversity

Publication Scheme

Performance

Trust Publications

Charitable Donations and Fundraising

Whistleblowing Policy

Hinchingbrooke's Future

Data Protection

Freedom of Information

Survey Results

Inpatient Survey

The 2007 Inpatient Survey, published by the Healthcare Commission, took place between September and December 2007 and received completed questionnaires from 570 patients, a response rate of 68%, against a national average of 56%.

The results make for interesting reading for the Trust, which ranked in the top performing 20% of Trusts in the responses to 20 questions, including the standard of hospital food, confidence and trust in the hospital's doctors, being involved in decisions about treatment, having someone to talk to about concerns and worries and the information given to patients on leaving hospital, such as written materials on medications and things to look out for.

However, the Trust was in the bottom 20% of trusts with regard to one question, the length of time taken from seeing a GP about referral to admission to hospital.

Staff Survey

Staff at Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust experience some of the lowest levels of stress in the NHS, according to the latest results from the NHS Staff Survey.

The survey was conducted by the Healthcare Commission across the NHS between October 2008 and January 2009 and is intended to provide trusts with information they can use to make changes to improve the working conditions and experiences of staff. Hinchingbrooke posted one of the highest response rates in England to the survey, with 68% of those receiving the questionnaire returning it.

The survey focussed on key areas affecting staff at work in the NHS, including work life balance, management and supervision, appraisal, training, learning and development, team working, communication, staff satisfaction and equality and diversity.

On the positive side, the survey showed that Hinchingbrooke was in the top 20% of similar NHS Trusts for its commitment to work-life balance (a score of 3.45 on a ranking out of five). This has increased over the past year. The trust is also in the best performing 20% of trusts for levels of staff stress, with a score of 25%, compared to a national average of 27%. This score has remained consistent over recent years, despite the amount of change taking place in the Trust and across the NHS. However, more staff than average for similar NHS Trusts said they felt pressured at work, although this had improved since 2007.

The Trust was also in the lowest 20% of acute Trusts for the numbers of staff experiencing physical violence from colleagues, and there has also been a decrease in staff feeling bullied or abused by other members of staff. The 2007 figure of 25% was a worrying increase, which was tackled by an anti-bullying campaign within the Trust. The numbers reporting bullying or abuse have now dropped to 18%, slightly lower than the national average of 19%, but a level that the Trust feels is still too high.  The numbers of staff receiving harassment or abuse from patients or relatives in the past year has remained the same.

Staff at the Trust find their line managers more supportive than the national average and more staff than in 2007 say they have hand washing materials easily available, something which the Trust also scores higher than the national average on.

However staff responses show there is a continued dissatisfaction with appraisal, as only 59% of staff said they had been appraised in the last 12 months. This was a pleasing improvement on last year’s result of 56%, but there is still more work in this area to be done.

While 44% of our staff said that they had witnessed a potentially harmful error, near miss or incident in the previous month (compared to an average of 38%), 95% of staff surveyed saying that they reported incidents, the same as the average, which is crucial in helping us to identify and tackle the problems.

An important reduction has been seen in the numbers of staff reporting that they wish to leave their job, something which has been reflected by a decrease in actual staff turnover. 

The survey was distributed to a random sample of 700 staff and 460 questionnaires were returned, which represents a 68% response rate, in the top 20% of acute trusts in England.

Last modified 24/01/11 15:25:10