Health and social care staff experience: report 2019

Introduction

Employers in Health and Social Care are committed to improving patient and public services through enhancing staff experience.  

Our 2020 Vision for Health and Social Care makes a commitment to valuing and empowering everyone who works in NHSScotland and supporting them to work to the best of their ability.  We recognise that improved staff experience is critical for delivery of the Scottish Government’s Health and Social Care Delivery Plan, to provide better care, better health and better value.  

It is therefore essential that staff at all levels in NHSScotland, including those working within Health & Social Care Partnerships (H & SCPs) are empowered and enabled to have their voices heard, that they are valued within their immediate team and wider organisation, and that their views, opinions and actions contribute to continuous improvement.  

The work to measure and report staff experience in Health and Social Care in 2019 was commissioned by the Scottish Government and carried out by Webropol Ltd, an independent company.

The iMatter Continuous Improvement Model 

The iMatter Continuous Improvement Model was developed by NHSScotland staff and aims to engage staff in a way that feels right for people at every level.  As a team-based tool, iMatter offers individual teams, managers and organisations the facility to measure, understand, improve and evidence staff experience.  The iMatter team stories included in this report illustrate the continued dedication of staff to improving not only their staff experience but in turn improving the care and services they deliver.  

Arrangements for the delivery of the iMatter model were developed in full partnership and have been endorsed by the Scottish Workforce and Staff Governance Committee (SWAG) and approved by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport.  iMatter was initially rolled out over a three year period from 2015 to 2017 to all staff across NHSScotland and 24 Health & Social H & SCPs that chose to participate.  The 2018 and 2019 programmes have repeated that process.

The implementation of iMatter has enabled us to obtain a comprehensive picture of staff experience. Indicating areas of success and those which require improvement both nationally and locally, it helps inform progress in delivering the commitments of our Staff Governance Standard.  Our commitment to promoting effective staff governance was reinforced with the NHS Scotland (Reform) Act 2004 and the Staff Governance Standard underpins that commitment.

iMatter Process

The iMatter questionnaire enables staff the opportunity to feed back their experience within their team and at organisational level on a real-time basis.  iMatter results are directly reported at team, directorate and organisation levels. Once team results are delivered two weeks after questionnaires closing, teams are invited to collectively share responsibility for developing an action plan within a 12 week period and to review actions and progress made throughout the year.  As an integral part of the iMatter process teams come together to review the results and share thoughts and ideas in order to develop and implement Action Plans. This process is illustrated through the sharing of Team Stories. This report includes a summary of the main themes emerging and includes hyperlinks to all of the Team Stories submitted (Appendix 2).

iMatter Report 2019 

This report provides detailed information and analysis of the iMatter responses for 2019.  It also contains comparisons to 2018 and 2017 where appropriate.

The findings from this report will be used by a range of stakeholders, including: 

• Individual organisations (Health Boards and local authorities)
• The Scottish Government
• Partnership Groups such as the Scottish Partnership Forum (SPF) and the Scottish Workforce and Staff Governance Committee (SWAG) 

Data Collection 

The iMatter questionnaire used Webropol to distribute electronic and paper questionnaires to NHSScotland employees, as well as those employed by the local authority who work in a Health & Social Care Partnership (H & SCPs) who chose to participate. In 2019, 22 Health Boards and 28 H & SCPs took part. 

For 2019 all fieldwork was carried out between 5 February and 17 September. Paper responses were accepted through until 24 September to allow for post processing.  The 2019 questionnaire additionally asked a question on staff groupings but was otherwise unchanged from 2018 and 2017. The report therefore contains data from all three years of the iMatter survey. Further details of the method are included in Appendix 1.