Beyond demoralised: Listening and responding to NHS frontline staff is everyone’s business (Improvement Academy, January 2022)

Summary

This report is for everyone with an interest in our health care services, and who cares about the staff who form its bedrock: domestic staff, porters, administrators, doctors, nurses, midwives, health support workers, allied health professionals; managers, and all the other people who support them to deliver the best possible care for patients, their carers and families.

Content

The Improvement Academy interviewed 60 healthcare staff across a variety of healthcare settings between November 2019 and August 2021. This revealed five key messages about the extent of strain staff have been under since before the Covid-19 pandemic, but that has been magnified intensely since.

These key messages are:

1. Covid brings new pressures to an already pressurised system.
2. Desire and expectation to provide good care is undermined by constant worry that this is not possible.
3. Reliance on team cohesion to survive
4. Staff are not getting what they need in order to give their best for patients.
5. Staff know how they would like managers at all levels to help them.

In this report we detail these messages and outline an intended Improvement Academy response.