West Hertfordshire HHS Trust Tops The League For The Wrong Reasons Yet Again

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 2nd Apr 2007

"The newly published annual Healthcare Commission survey of NHS staff is a further searing indictment of what has been allowed to happen to the health service in West Hertfordshire," said Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for St Albans.

"West Hertfordshire tops the league yet again - but sadly again for all the wrong reasons. Very nearly half of West Hertfordshire staff surveyed - 48 percent - said they would be unhappy to be patients in their own hospitals. Only 21 percent of those surveyed - just one in five of those working in our local hospitals - said they would be happy to be customers of their own healthcare. This was the worst result of any NHS Trust in England and Wales.

"In France, restaurants boast that "Le Patron Mange Ici." What does it say about our own local hospitals that half the staff have no confidence in the healthcare provided?

"Any manager of a large organisation knows that staff surveys are barometers of the health and well-being of an organisation. If staff are unhappy, patients are going to be unhappy too. The two measures go hand in hand. These results are further evidence of a local organisation which is virtually broken.

"The best scores are only average for the UK and the worst ones are in some cases truly dreadful.

"West Hertfordshire is in the bottom 20 percent of NHS Trusts in quality of work-life balance, in the bottom twenty percent for staff having appraisals, training and development, and in the bottom twenty percent for staff having well-designed job specifications. Without these basic elements of a well-run organisation, how can the Trust expect to get out of the hole it has dug itself into?

"The staff say they do not get support from their immediate line manager, they are stressed and under pressure.

"Worryingly for our local area, the St Albans City Hospital scores are exceptionally bad even by the already low results from the other sites - half the already low figures for the Trust overall for staff appraisals and relevant training, twice the stress, twice the experience of bullying from staff and patients, twice the level of workplace injury.

"The management should be hanging their heads in shame at these figures," said Sandy. "It is an indictment too of ten years of Labour government. We need to see a clear action plan to address these problems - this is the least the management can do and the frontline staff delivering our patient care deserve nothing less."

ENDS

The full survey can be accessed on-line at http://www.healthcarecommission.org.uk

For more information, please contact Sandy Walkington on 07802 177317