NHSSCOTLAND STAFF SURVEY 2013 National Report

3. Survey Methodology

The fieldwork for the 2013 Staff Survey was conducted over a six week period (27^th May to 5^th July 2013). For NHS National Services Scotland (NSS), the survey was delayed until 16^th September to 11^th October 2013, due to the proximity to their own Staff Survey in October/ November 2012. As in previous years, all staff were invited to participate. The survey was administered online, although paper copies were also made available where required. The promotion of the survey to NHSScotland staff was the responsibility of each NHS Board. A Communications Toolkit was developed by ISD to support NHS Boards in developing their local communication strategy.

The survey questions were agreed by the Scottish Workforce and Staff Governance (SWAG) Committee. These were based on the 2010 questions, but with some minor changes to reflect feedback from the previous survey. Throughout the 2013 National Report, comparisons are made with the 2010 survey and, where possible, with earlier ones. There have, however, been alterations to the questions over the years, which limits the number of time trend comparisons that are possible. The report commentary focuses mainly on the all-NHSScotland findings, but does make reference to notable differences in results across NHS Boards and Staff Groups.

As with previous NHSScotland Staff Surveys, the results are un-weighted with no adjustments made for the relative size of, or response rate within, NHS Boards, Staff Groups or socio-demographic groups. A Sample Profile, detailing the employment and socio-demographic characteristics of the staff who responded to the survey, is shown in Appendix A. The profile of staff who responded to the 2013 NHSScotland Staff Survey is broadly in line with that of all staff employed within NHSScotland^[8]. The 2013 sample profile is also very similar to the equivalent profile for the 2010 NHSScotland Staff Survey. Response rates within NHS Boards, age groups and Staff Groups did vary. For questions where there appeared to be notable variation in response amongst Boards and/or age groups, weighted and un-weighted results were calculated and compared; in all cases the results differed by <1%.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to calculate accurate response rates for individual Staff Groups. Some of the Staff Group categories used within the survey do not map directly to the SWISS (Scottish Workforce Information Standard System) categories that the staffing figures for NHSScotland are based on. Furthermore, some staff appear to have selected alternative SWISS categorisations when completing the NHS Staff Survey.

Included in this National Report are results for individual NHS Boards (Appendix B) and Staff Groups (Appendix C), as well as employment profile and socio-demographic breakdowns (e.g. results by pay range and by age group), Appendix D. Findings across the current and previous three NHSScotland Staff Surveys are summarised in Appendix E. Details of the questions asked/changes in question wording between the 2010 and 2013 NHS Staff Surveys are provided at Appendix F.