Morale at two of Norfolk's major hospitals lower than average, survey finds

A quarter of staff at two hospitals plan to look for jobs elsewhere due to morale, an NHS staff survey showed.

Some 25% of staff at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) and King's Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) said they would "probably look for a job at a new organisation".

Nationally the figure was 18%.

The NNUH trust said the survey reflected a "difficult period" due to workload pressures, and recruitment programmes were under way.

At Gorleston's James Paget University Hospital (JPUH), the figure reflected the national average at 18%, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Among the county's three emergency hospitals, the NNUH performed the least well on a range of questions.

Nineteen percent of workers said there were "enough staff for me to do my job properly", compared with 22% at the QEH and a national average of 26%. The figure at the JPUH was 27%.

Among registered nurses and midwives at the NNUH, the figure was as low as 12.5%.

Teresa Budrey, eastern regional director at the Royal College of Nursing, said the information was "very worrying".

"When there are not enough staff, it can mean patients don't receive the care they need or their safety is compromised," she said.

An NNUH staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, said that in addition to "severe staffing shortages", the hospital was suffering from "dangerous overcrowding" which was "demoralising staff".

They also alleged there was a lack of visibility among the hospital's leadership, with frontline staff "never included" in discussions about care provision.

NNUH chief executive Sam Higginson responded: "This year's staff survey results reflect a difficult period for our organisation and what staff have been telling us around work pressures and the impact that has had on morale and wellbeing.

"We are developing a three-year improvement plan and already have several large-scale recruitment campaigns under way... which includes the 96 international nurses who are due to join us by the end of May.

"We are working with other organisations across Norfolk and Waveney to recruit 800 healthcare assistants, with our trust taking the largest cohort."

On other measures, the QEH performed least well. Just 48% of QEH staff said they were happy with the hospital's standard of care, compared with 60% at the NNUH and a national average of 67%. The JPUH's figure was 72%.

The QEH's director of people, Jo Humphries, said the findings were "disappointing".

"We will continue to work closely with our staff to make further improvements to their work experiences," she said.

JPUH chief executive Anna Hills said the hospital's relatively positive scores were "encouraging" but said the responses nonetheless "reflect the experience of the unprecedented challenge of the pandemic".

How did the region's ambulance service perform?

The East of England Ambulance Service performed the worst out of England and Wales' 11 ambulance trusts on a range of questions relating to morale and working conditions.

Some 64% reported feeling "unwell as a result of work-related stress" in the previous year.

Tom Abell, the trust's chief executive, said: "While the NHS staff survey acknowledges the improvements we have made in key areas - the results also show that we still have deep-rooted, long-standing issues that need to be addressed."

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