Tameside Staff Engagement Paper

Tameside Trust
Tameside Hospital is a National Health Service hospital run by Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust that serves the neighbouring area of Tameside in Greater Manchester (Trust, 2015). The hospital provides a wide array of healthcare services which includes specialised surgeries, obstetric services and paediatric services and employees more than of 2,300 staff members (Trust, 2015). Some of the Trust’s main stakeholders are North West Ambulance Service, Private Finance Initiative (PFI) Partners, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, as well as staff, patients, and managers (Trust, 2015). Tameside’s mission statement is “Everyone Matter’s at Tameside. Our aim is to deliver, with our partners, safe, effective and personal care,

which you can trust” (James & Connellan, 2014). This message appeals to the employees who work at the trust and delivers a sense of cultural openness which is vitally important for staff engagement (James & Connellan, 2014). The trust has a number of beneficial aspects in regards to staff engagement yet there are still elements that need to be focused on to have a higher overall rating for the staff engagement and development at the hospital which can lead to leaders arising within the organisation.
Staff Engagement and Development
For Tameside it is worth putting a higher focus on staff engagement and development.

It impacts the hospital’s prosperity and productivity immensely and if employee engagement is strong it results in a more productive workforce, higher job satisfaction and moral, higher retention, better skilled staff, lower absentee rates and better patient loyalty and satisfaction. Tameside hospital has aspects of their approach to staff engagement that have high performance rates (which they need to maintain) and aspects that were lower in performance which need drastic improvements to have a more productive hospital. Progressive staff engagement and development not only benefits the staff at the hospital but leads to a better experience and service for patients, which ultimately benefits the stakeholders and the organisation as a

whole.
Tameside has many positive aspects in regards to staff engagement that need to be sustained in order for the hospital to perform to high standards. The trust received high rakings in the percentage of staff appraised in last 12 months, the percentage of staff agreeing that their role makes a difference to patients, the percentage of staff saying hand washing materials are always available, the percentage of staff experiencing physical violence from patients in last 12 month, and the percentage of staff suffering from work-related stress in last 12 months (James & Connellan, 2014). These are all excellent indicators for overall staff engagement. By having staff feel they are making a difference and having lower rates of stress leads to higher job satisfaction and improves retention rates. Also having hand washing material readily available leads to a decline of preventable complications with patients and decreases communicable disease rates within the hospital.
Even though the Trust has aspects of staff engagement that are vital and performed higher than the national average, there are still elements that need to be addresses to see the overall improvement and development of staff engagement.

Some aspects of staff engagement at Tameside Trust that performed worse than the other NHS Acute Trusts are the percentage of staff receiving job-relevant training, learning or development in last 12 months, over worked staff, effective team working, and percentage of staff reporting errors, near misses or incidents witnessed in the last month (James & Connellan, 2014). These performance rates are low for elements that are vital in providing internal strength in the organisation. Staff training is hugely important to an organisation and is a reflection of

management.
Staff development has many benefits in that it shows that an organisation takes priority and cares about the staff member and their development for future progression (Lipman, 2013). By engaging in staff development the workforce will have a greater sense of loyalty which results in an increase in engagement and productivity (Lipman, 2013). Having a good development and training programme will attract ambitious and talented individuals to the hospital therefore it is important that the Trust engage in staff training so that they also have a higher retention rate (Lipman, 2013). Effective team working is another aspect that needs improvement at the Trust to increase productivity. By having effective team work at the Trust staff will become greater familiar with each other and make it easier to delegate tasks which will also improve efficiency (Root III, 2015). Teamwork also provides a strong supportive environment which leads to high moral and better productivity (Root III, 2015). Over working staff is another problem that the Trust needs to focus on because it is detrimental. When staff work extra hours they have are less healthier, have a higher increase of reporting mistakes (another aspect of staff engagement Tameside needs to improve on, which makes both aspects interconnected), staff have more of a resentment to management, and are more willing to look for work elsewhere leading to lower retention rates (McKay, 2015).
Tameside has areas of staff engagement that they have accelerated on and needs to maintain a high performance in, but the Trust also has aspects of their staff engagement that needs more focus and strategic evaluation to gain higher performance ratings. To understand and implement change it is essential to critically analyse, from a stakeholder’s perspective, the context, content and process of change (Lau, 1999). By following the Pettigrew and Whipp (1991) Content, Context, Process Model, staff engagement can be analysed through identifying objectives, identifying internal and external factors and stakeholders influencing the Trust, and the process of formulating and implementing change (Whipp & Pettigrew, 1991).