Health & Social Care Staff Experience Survey 2023
Independent report by Webropol providing detailed information and analysis of staff experience in health and social care across Scotland during 2023
Response Rates
Introduction
The response rate shows the number of staff issued with the questionnaire (Recipients) and the number of staff who responded (Respondents) as an overall percentage.
In total 201,745 questionnaires were issued, and 118,376 usable responses were received. This equates to an overall response rate of 59%.
Board Response Rates
Response rates across individual Boards range from 92% for Healthcare Improvement Scotland to 50% for NHS Highland.
| Board | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | Response Rate Movement 2023-2022 (pp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health and Social Care | 63% | 59% | 62% | 56% | 55% | 59% | +4 |
| National Boards (Patient-facing) | |||||||
| NHS Golden Jubilee | 68% | 63% | 67% | 67% | 61% | 65% | +4 |
| NHS 24 | 67% | 70% | 65% | 57% | 65% | 70% | +5 |
| Scottish Ambulance Service | 64% | 64% | 59% | 60% | 52% | 56% | +4 |
| The State Hospital | 78% | 77% | 79% | 69% | 72% | 72% | 0 |
| National Boards (Support) | |||||||
| Healthcare Improvement Scotland | 80% | 86% | 90% | 91% | 91% | 92% | +1 |
| National Services Scotland | 76% | 77% | 82% | 74% | 75% | 78% | +3 |
| NHS Education for Scotland | 81% | 84% | 87% | 92% | 88% | 88% | 0 |
| Public Health Scotland | 86% | 75% | 79% | +4 | |||
| Geographic Boards (Patient-facing) | |||||||
| NHS Ayrshire & Arran | 64% | 59% | 60% | 53% | 53% | 58% | +5 |
| NHS Borders | 61% | 53% | 53% | 52% | 52% | 55% | +3 |
| NHS Dumfries & Galloway | 63% | 59% | 66% | 55% | 60% | 65% | +5 |
| NHS Fife | 62% | 53% | 62% | 59% | 60% | 66% | +6 |
| NHS Forth Valley | 65% | 62% | 68% | 54% | 56% | 61% | +5 |
| NHS Grampian | 64% | 60% | 62% | 57% | 57% | 62% | +5 |
| NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 58% | 54% | 59% | 51% | 52% | 54% | +2 |
| NHS Highland | 58% | 51% | 60% | 51% | 47% | 50% | +3 |
| NHS Lanarkshire | 65% | 62% | 65% | 56% | 55% | 58% | +3 |
| NHS Lothian | 65% | 63% | 63% | 53% | 54% | 58% | +4 |
| NHS Orkney | 73% | 83% | 66% | 65% | 58% | 59% | +1 |
| NHS Shetland | 61% | 56% | 63% | 60% | 55% | 60% | +5 |
| NHS Tayside | 65% | 58% | 61% | 60% | 58% | 58% | 0 |
| NHS Western Isles | 52% | 52% | 56% | 58% | 62% | 64% | +2 |
All Boards achieved the same or higher response rates than in 2022.
Many Boards have achieved considerable increases in their response rates from 2022. The largest increases are for the following Boards:
- NHS Fife response rate up 6 pps to 66%. This is the highest the Board has ever achieved, up 4 pps from 62% in 2017.
- NHS 24, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, NHS Forth Valley, NHS Grampian and NHS Shetland have all increased their response rates by 5pps.
Feedback from several of these Boards, demonstrate a renewed commitment to staff engagement, manager support and proactive encouragement to take part in iMatter.
In addition to NHS Fife, two other Boards have achieved their highest ever response rates:
- Healthcare Improvement Scotland: 92% in 2023 up 12 pps from 80% in 2017.
- NHS Western Isles: 64% in 2023 up 12 pps from 52% in 2017.
Whilst a 1pp increase in response rate was achieved by NHS Orkney to 59%, it remains considerably below the 2017 response rate of 2017 (73%) and 24pps below the peak response rate in 2018 (83%).
Further details of response volume and response rates by method are contained in Appendix 7.
The increase in response rate has typically been driven by Boards taking positive steps to support increased participation with the survey. Some examples follow:
“Ongoing improvements in staff engagement within NHS Forth Valley, our focus on iMatter at Board level, Staff Governance and Area Partnership Forum. The collaborative working relationships and development between FV iMatter team, Directorate iMatter Local administrators and Managers across the organisation to support the process and encourage staff engagement.
Board and CEO refreshed commitment supported by Human Resources and Organisational Development to our compassionate leadership and culture change programme post Covid.
Recommitment by Employee Director and CEO to working in partnership and actively encouraging staff to ‘speak up’ with increasing messaging to use iMatter to find their voice and have their say in shaping the organisation.” NHS Forth Valley, iMatter Team
“Following the end of the 2022 cycle we met with a number of teams and individuals to understand their experience of iMatter. Taking into account our own review and this feedback for 2023 we:
1. Developed a Communication plan which identified key messages
2. Planned regular short pieces for Board's weekly comms email which focused on tasks and FAQs
3. Had longer pieces in the corporate monthly newsletter
4. Circulated a clear action timeline to all managers which was advertised on the homepage of the Board’s intranet.
5. Promoted the NHS Fife eLearning module in every communication and interaction to broaden knowledge and understanding around iMatter
6. Attended existing multi-team / service meetings in order to promote iMatter and answer any questions. These we prioritised by looking at last years response rate” NHS Shetland, iMatter Team
“Actions taken include:
- Engaging on a higher level with HSCP colleagues by appointing 2 Directorate Admins.
- Distributing awareness raising and progress updates through every stage via organisation-wide communications and direct communications to team managers
- Service-specific communications to encourage areas where paper-based questionnaires have been used in the past to move to SMS or email.
- ‘Things you didn’t know about iMatter’ – a weekly communication via Weekly Brief, Stafflink and HSCP forums to highlight key facts that may support increased engagement e.g., a move to SMS/email or engagement in Team Action Planning
- Distributing short videos from our Director of Workforce and Director of HSCP encouraging engagement in iMatter and emphasising the benefits of this to teams.
- Providing a Manager Pack with resources applicable to all stages of the process
- Providing the iMatter eLearning course to HSCP colleagues (with the language changed to reflect their references - eg 'patients' to 'service users', etc) for hosting on their Council eLearning platform (Oracle)
- Providing online Q&A drop-in sessions during the Manager Team Confirmation stage
- Attending individual team meetings to discuss iMatter and the benefits of it (where possible)
- 3-week roadshow over the entire questionnaire period over multiple NHS and HSCP sites to support survey participants, answer questions and provide an opportunity for support in accessing questionnaire (we carried laptops so participants could complete their survey). Coffee, tea and biscuits were provided on all roadshows.” NHS Fife, iMatter Team
“Launch of NHS 24 Management Essential Programme and Corporate Induction Programmes which include sections on iMatter and stresses its importance to those attending.
iMatter comms plan put in place ahead of iMatter cycle starting.
Manual revision of the Organisational Hierarchy spreadsheet, to try minimising errors such as wrong email addresses.
Weekly tracking of response rates with appropriate actions put in place, including direct reminders to managers where team response was 0 or where team report was not going to be generated
Weekly notification to PA's of teams in their directorates where response rate was low, to encourage completion.
Resending of questionnaire link to outstanding staff members in the last week.” NHS 24, iMatter Team
NHS Ayrshire & Arran have provided additional support to new and existing managers, along with consistency in Board Administrators who are therefore now more experienced in the iMatter process. It is noted also that the iMatter lead has within their email signature links to iMatter information.
Contact
Email: NationaliMatterTeam@gov.scot
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