Staff satisfaction surveys

The anonymised annual staff satisfaction survey that each trust carries out is the means of safeguarding NHS standards.1

Firstly, well trained frontline staff know whether the standard of patient care in their trust is good.

Secondly, the general dissatisfaction of NHS staff is because they are not able to do their job as well as they know they ought to. This feeling should be revealed by the answers to three questions in the survey:

• 1 I am able to do my job to a standard I am personally pleased with

• 2 Care of patients is my trust’s top priority

• 3 I am able to deliver the patient care I aspire to.

The data required to support or refute the usefulness of these questions in assessing standards in each trust are available to the Department of Health by relating them to each trust’s outcomes. For too long insufficient notice has been taken of the people looking after patients.