Just as we listen intently to our patients, we also take great care to listen to what our own people are telling us.

Every year you will have the opportunity to talk in depth with your line manager about your own ongoing development with Northumbria Healthcare as part of a structured appraisal process.

Acting on feedback from our staff, we have rolled out a new appraisal ‘workbook’ to help structure the appraisal experience in a way which facilitates positive feedback and allows both parties to contribute to robust objective setting and also agree a plan for ongoing personal and professional development.

We also encourage all of our staff to contribute and share their own ideas on how we can improve the quality of the care and experience we offer our patients.  Following feedback from staff our ‘well organised ward’ initiative has now resulted in teams spending less time searching for equipment and more time nursing patients, with estimated stock savings of £2,500 per ward.

We know from the annual NHS staff survey that our staff are some of the most satisfied in the NHS with a high percentage routinely telling us that they feel their role makes a difference to patients.

Each year we record some of the best response rates in England for the national survey, with staff expressing extremely high levels of satisfaction in their job and in the quality of patient care they deliver.