Staff

It is our vision that all staff commissioning and providing NHS services should have rewarding jobs. They will be able to provide quality care, because jobs will have been designed around patients with the input of staff. The inclusion of staff pledges, expectations, responsibilities and legal duties in this Handbook reflects the fact that improving the patient experience requires the continued improvement of the working lives of staff. Staff covered by the Handbook include employees and contractors (people operating under a contract to provide services) who commission and/or provide NHS services, whether they work for NHS organisations or for non NHS organisations.

The principles that this section is based on have come from research on 'What Matters to Staff', which was carried out in 2007. This involved around 9,000 NHS staff across all professions and sought to identify what matters to them in their work. The research identified four themes. These are now reflected in the NHS staff survey and also inform the NHS Constitution and values. The values represent what is important to those who both use and provide NHS services, and can guide it in the 21st century. What matters to staff is that they have:

 - the resources to deliver quality care for patients;
 - the support they need to do a good job;
 - a worthwhile job with chances to develop; and
 - the opportunity to improve the way they work.

To really embrace the full and challenging definition of quality set out in the 'High Quality Care for All', it must be recognised that high-quality care requires high-quality workplaces, with commissioners and providers aiming to be employers of choice.

Rights, pledges, expectations and responsibilities

The Handbook sets out our vision of the rights, pledges, expectations and legal duties that staff and employers can expect. These exist on two levels - the organisational and the personal.

At an organisational level, the NHS staff survey provides a key tool through which staff can express their views and offer feedback about their organisation as a whole. The Handbook should provide useful information to allow staff to consider their responses to any surveys. More and more organisations are using their survey findings to influence the way in which things are done locally and to address staff concerns. The Care Quality Commission will use the staff survey as a measure of staff satisfaction, and will include this in its annual report on trusts.  

At a personal level, the information in the Handbook should provide a framework for discussions amoung individual members of staff and with their line managers, informing and enabling discussions on service improvement, team working, performance management, training and development. It is always better to discuss and resolve issues quickly. Staff should speak to a member of the management team or seek support from a colleague; options such as mediation should also be explored if problems persist. The Handbook is designed to be a useful reference tool and is not intended to provide any new grounds for individual grievances or litigation.

Related pages on this site

Staff rightsinformation on the rights for staff in the NHS ConstitutionStaff pledgesPledges for staff contained in the NHS ConstitutionStaff responsibilitiesinformation on the responsibilities for staff in the NHS ConstitutionStaff expectationsExpectations of staff in the NHS ConstitutionStaff resourcesstaff resources on the NHS Constitution

Related downloads

| NHS Constitution published 2010.pdf (0.11 MB)

| Handbook to the NHS Constitution published 2010.pdf (1.17 MB)

| Staff guide.pdf (5.67 MB)