Colleague relations

The suspension process was refreshed, evidencing a drop in average length of suspension from 121 days in April 2022 to 108 days in March 2023.

Processes were reviewed to ensure that out people were well supported during employment relation related situations, which can often be stressful and of a sensitive nature.

The NHS 2022 staff survey report obtained the highest completion rate ever seen by EEAST, at 60%. This placed EEAST at the top of the leader board against other comparable ambulance trusts, in terms of staff response rates.

EEAST took a positive step forward with regards to colleague experience; 46% of questions scored more positively than 2021 and a further 45% stayed the same.

These results demonstrate that on the majority of questions, EEAST had improvement in colleague perception and experience. This trend was reflected in the pulse survey conducted in January 2023, which further highlighted an upward improvement of positive responses compared to the snapshot taken in August 2022 via the NHS 2022 staff survey.

All directorates developed action plans in response to their staff survey results to ensure continued focus and effort in this area.

The staff survey data was triangulated with other staff data, such as employee relation cases, patient safety cases and Freedom to Speak Up information, to identify trends across the organisation and put suitable action plans in place where required.

There is still work to do to achieve the organisational goal of being a great place to work, volunteer and learn.

Question 23e of the survey, I feel safe to speak up about anything that concerns me in this organisation exceeded our target and increased to 46%. Whilst an increase of 3% was below the average for all Trusts, it provided EEAST with the assurance that the challenging work currently being undertaken was making a difference to the culture of speaking up.

Over the past year, Freedom to Speak Up had seen a consistent level of new concerns raised each month. With wider strategic work on culture and behaviours ongoing within EEAST, the number of new cases remained consistent and proportionate to the speed of the cultural change. This had given rise to multiple complex cases, requiring increased case management.

To meet the increased demand, the team was increased to three full-time permanent guardians supported by 21 ambassadors, ensuring that speaking up became business as usual within the Trust and enabled targeted support to each Integrated Care Board (ICB).

Bullying and harassment remained in the top three themes, although with a significant reduction of reports by colleagues from 115 in 2021/22 to 59 in 2022/23.

Issues regarding senior and middle managers was the third highest reported theme.

A review of HR polices, regular communication on inappropriate attitudes and behaviours and an increased capacity within the People Services team, resulted in informal routes for escalation being explored earlier, with expedited support.

Additionally, having a dedicated investigations team and stringent underlying processes, meant that formal routes were seeing case timeframes significantly reduced.

The Trust conducted three colleague surveys for minority groups as part of a three year inclusivity plan, to understand what our baseline of colleague lived experience was and support us to form valid and relevant targeted action plans.

The three surveys were carried out between October 2022 - February 2023 for colleagues who are Black and Minority Ethnic (BME), LGBT+, or have a disability or neurodiverse condition.

Each survey obtained over 50% response rate and was supported by the different equality, diversity and inclusion networks within EEAST.
The survey results were a hard read, with many citing poor experiences going back several years.

As part of our commitment to create an inclusive culture where everyone can belong, we intend to use these results as a baseline to build upon and will commit to measure our performance through repeating these surveys annually.

Several concerns regarding race and discrimination raised to Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) were escalated to formal processes and the Board, following which the BME review was commissioned. There were indications supporting the claim that colleagues were either too scared to raise a concern or when they did, the concerns were not acted upon quickly enough, if at all. The findings from the review supported these findings and action plans were developed to address this.

The National Guardians Office (NGO) undertook a review on the culture of speaking up across all ambulance trusts. EEAST was fortunate to be one of the five ambulance trusts selected.

The report was published in February 2023 and identified 5 key themes:

• The culture of ambulance trusts.
• Leadership and management.
• The experience of people who speak up.
• Implementation of the Freedom to Speak Up guardian role.
• The role of system partners and regulators.

EEAST developed an action plan to achieve the recommendations identified.

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