Alastair Henderson, joint acting director at NHS Employers, said: “This is a good news story for the NHS.  The results of this annual survey are consistently improving.  It shows that staff feel they are making a difference to patients and that the NHS is a good place to work.

“Employers across the NHS can rightly be proud of the survey results and of the excellent work of NHS staff. There are 26 'key score' categories that can directly be compared with the surveys of previous years and staff reported overall improvements in 18 of these 26 areas, with the majority of the remainder remaining stable.

“This broad improvement comes from effective measures that employers are developing with their staff to improve working life and to tackle complex problems such as workplace stress. It is now increasingly established that positive change for staff leads to better healthcare for patients.

“However we should not be complacent and there are still areas that need to improve, such as team working and communication between managers and staff.  We are pleased that more staff are getting appraisals but more must be done to ensure that these are well structured, for example with further development of the Knowledge and Skills Framework.  NHS Employers, in partnership with the Social Partnership Forum, will continue to support trusts with these and other issues to help ensure excellence and progress in the NHS.

“Staff satisfaction levels in ambulance services lag behind the rest of the NHS. However, it is important to remember that ambulance staff are at the absolute front line of the health service and can face some of its most challenging environments. Trusts take this issue very seriously and are working hard to improve conditions for all ambulance staff.

“This survey is important because it is a unique opportunity for trusts to identify what they need to focus on, identifying priorities based on feedback from staff and building on what is good.”

Some of the findings noted by the survey include:

• 90 per cent of staff feel that they make a difference to patients
• 71 per cent of staff, up from 61 per cent the previous year (2007), say hand-washing materials are “always” available when needed.  Also 62 per cent now say they have been trained in the past 12 months in infection control, up from 53 per cent the previous year
• 64 per cent of staff had an appraisal (or Knowledge and Skills Development review). This has climbed yearly from 2006 (58 per cent) and 2007 (61 per cent)
• 83 per cent of staff are “satisfied” with the standard of care they provide
• 28 per cent of staff reported work-related stress, down from 32 per cent the previous year
• 23 per cent of staff reporting bullying, harassment or abuse from patients or relatives, down from 26 per cent the previous year
• Just over half (51 per cent) of all staff said they understood the national vision for the NHS and know how their trust contributes to what the NHS is trying to achieve (52 per cent).