Guidance: NHS staff standards (DHSC, 6 July 2026)

Summary

The NHS staff standards set national minimum employment requirements to improve staff experience, outlining employer actions and what staff can expect.

Content

The 10 Year Health Plan committed to developing a new set of staff standards which will outline minimum standards for employment across a range of areas, aimed at improving staff experience. The standards set out the actions employers must take to deliver them and what staff can expect at work as a result.

The documents published here bring together:

• an overview explaining why the staff standards have been introduced, how they will be used and what each standard means in practice
• the full staff standards, setting out the detailed requirements for employers.

The staff standards focus on key areas that staff have told us matter most, including:

• line management
• health and wellbeing
• violence prevention and reduction
• sexual safety
• tackling racism
• flexible working.

The standards have been developed by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England, working closely with employers and trade unions through the Social Partnership Forum, and are intended to be implemented locally through partnership working.

The standards are for NHS staff, employers and leaders, and should be used alongside existing workforce policies and initiatives to support implementation.

The standards will apply to secondary care, which includes acute, mental health, ambulance services and community healthcare.