Two in five Hampshire Hospitals Trust staff unwell due to stress

The annual NHS staff survey has revealed the toll of the Covid-19 crisis on staff at trusts across England, who faced huge pressures as hospital admissions surged.

At Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 44 per cent of staff who responded to the 2020 survey said they had felt unwell in the past 12 months as a result of work-related stress – up from 38 per cent a year earlier.

It reflected the picture across England as a whole, where 44 per cent of NHS staff said they had been unwell due to work-related stress last year, compared to 40 per cent the year before.

Helen Buckingham, director of strategy at the Nuffield Trust health think tank, said the survey reveals "the astonishing resilience of the NHS".

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Catherine Hope-MacLellan, director of people at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “All the staff at the trust have been truly amazing despite such a difficult year and we recognise the stress our staff have experienced and are understandably concerned for their wellbeing. 

“The increase in those reporting feeling unwell due to work-related stress is expected due to the challenges staff in all areas of the trust have experienced in the last 12 months.

“It’s also unprecedented that 26 per cent of staff who completed the survey had been redeployed due to the pandemic, which can bring its own challenges of being in a different environment and with different teams.

“We also saw 41 per cent of respondents having worked on a COVID-19 specific ward or area at any time.   It is promising that since the last survey, we’ve seen a six per cent increase in the amount of people who would recommend the trust as a place to work, so despite the difficult times many staff are facing, we hope they feel the trust is providing the support they need.

“We are making enormous efforts to increase the health and wellbeing support we are offering staff, this has included free meals, free parking, increased resources in occupational health support and talking therapies both as teams and individuals.

“We continue to evaluate the needs of our staff via our Wellbeing Hub and pulse surveys on an ongoing basis and will do all we can to support our workforce as we look to recover from this.”

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Findings also revealed that 43 per cent of staff at Hampshire Hospitals Trust said they had gone to work in the previous three months despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties, a drop from 55 per cent.

Only around 32 per cent of staff said they feel their organisation takes positive action on health and well-being, although that was up from 28 per cent the year before.

Some 2,800 employees at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust gave feedback for the NHS Staff Survey 2020, which was carried out between September and December last year.

Prerana Issar, chief people officer for the NHS, said there needs to be a sustained focus on healthcare workers’ physical and mental health.

"Given the high level of work-related stress for staff caused by the pandemic, we need to maintain our focus on health and wellbeing and give them the support they need during recovery to help us to maintain care for patients," she said.

The survey also reveals 19% of Hampshire Hospitals Trust staff are considering leaving the NHS – that includes people considering retiring or taking a career break and those considering moving to a job outside healthcare, or in healthcare but outside the NHS.

Meanwhile, the proportion of staff who are satisfied with their pay rose to 37 per cent last year, from 36 per cent in 2019.

The survey was carried out before the Government sparked a backlash by announcing a proposed 1 per cent pay rise for NHS staff.