NHS pay review body: twenty-sixth report 2012 - Official Documents

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• Orthoptists – the British and Irish Orthoptic Society believed that the practice of
stripping out senior posts (Band 8 and above) might look attractive but had serious
consequences for quality of service, expert clinical knowledge, career progression
and morale and motivation. BIOS considered that undergraduate commissioning
was just about in line with vacancy levels.
Our Comment
5.15 Our remit for this report has allowed us to broadly scan the current position on
recruitment and retention for AfC staff. We review the evidence in Chapter 3 and
conclude that recruitment continues to be healthy and retention is stable. We also
comment that the current position needs to be viewed in the light of prevailing
economic and labour market circumstances. In this context, we note that the position
for shortage groups may also be easing slightly although further monitoring is required.
We also urge the Department of Health to address the long term occupational shortages
raised by the MAC report.
5.16 In our future deliberations, we will rely on the parties to keep us informed of any pay
and workforce issues related to specific shortage groups. We therefore ask that they
highlight where pay plays a specific role in such groups’ recruitment and retention. Often
shortages can arise from weaknesses in establishing sufficient training commissions, in
workforce planning, and in making available appropriate education and training. It is
important to us in considering the evidence that we can clearly isolate pay from other
workforce matters. The NHS Staff Surveys and individual union surveys can help in this
context and we, again, stress the need for accurate and reliable data (e.g. on vacancies
and skill mix changes) being available to support our pay recommendations.
Morale and Motivation
NHS Staff Surveys
5.17 The latest NHS Staff Survey for England was undertaken during September to December
2010 with almost 165,000 employees participating and the results were published in
March 2011. The NHS Scottish Staff Survey (undertaken in October and November
2010) reported in January 2011 with 42,061 staff responding. Staff Surveys were not
undertaken for 2010/11 in Wales or Northern Ireland.
5.18
The main conclusions from the NHS Staff Survey in England were:
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77% of staff had had appraisals in the last 12 months (69% in 2009);
64% were happy with the standard of care provided by the trust (an increase from
62% in 2009);
41% have had good opportunities to develop in their work (compared with 44% in
2009);
28% said that they will look for a new job in the next 12 months (up from 22% in
2009); and
8% reported experiencing physical violence from patients, relatives or other
members of the public, while 15% said they have been subject to bullying,
harassment and abuse.