NHSSCOTLAND STAFF SURVEY 2014 National Report

3 Survey methodology

The fieldwork for the 2014 Staff Survey was conducted over a six week period from 25th August to 6th October 2014. As in previous years, all members of staff across NHSScotland were invited to participate. The survey was multi-modal and gave staff the opportunity to contribute their views:

• on-line (using a secure URL and individual password);
• by postal questionnaire; and
• over the telephone.

The promotion of the survey to NHSScotland staff was the responsibility of each NHS Board. A range of promotional material was developed by Capita Surveys and Research to support NHS Boards in developing their local communication strategies.

Weekly e-mail reminders were sent to staff who had not completed the survey.

The survey questions were agreed by the Scottish Workforce and Staff Governance (SWAG) Committee. These were largely based on the 2013 questions. Boards were also given the opportunity to ask up to three local questions. Throughout the 2014 National Report, comparisons are made with the 2013 survey, and with earlier ones where possible. There have been alterations to the questions over the years, which limit 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.

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 2014 Survey is broadly in line with that of all staff employed within NHSScotland. The 2014 sample profile is also very similar to the equivalent profile for the 2013 Survey.

It was not possible to calculate accurate response rates for individual staff groups as 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.

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.

Included in this National Report are results for individual NHS Boards (Appendix C) and staff groups (Appendix D), as well as for employment and socio-demographic groups (Appendix E).

Findings across the current and previous four NHSScotland Staff Surveys are summarised in Appendix F.