ROYAL Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals (RBCH) is the top performing acute trust in the country according to results from a national staff survey.

The anonymous survey collected the views of staff on what it is like working at RBCH and, 73 per cent said they would recommend the trust as a place to work, compared to the average among acute trusts of 61 per cent. Staff also gave a vote of confidence to standards of care, with 81 per cent recommending RBCH as a place to receive treatment against an acute trust average of 71 per cent.

It means RBCH is in the top 20 per cent of all acute trusts for 24 of the 32 key findings in this year’s NHS National Staff Survey.

In terms of overall staff engagement, RBCH's score of 3.96 (out of 5) was in the highest 20 per cent when compared with trusts of a similar type.

Listening into Action, which has analysed all the data, said: “Take a bow The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for a quite remarkable set of results from staff in the current national context.

“They might only have gone up one place from their league position last year, but the results are a trend-bucker."

RBCH is part way through a cultural change programme supported by the trust’s Change Champions. Over the last few years, the trust has been in regular dialogue with staff to hear opportunities for change and improvement in working at RBCH.

The trust is also working to strengthen the employee proposition under its ‘People Plan’ 2017-2020 which brings together all of its staff strategies.

Karen Allman, director of human resources, said: “The confidence staff have expressed in our trust as both a place to work and a place to receive treatment is extremely heartening. We take nothing for granted and these great results will encourage us to work even harder to support our people as we face an exciting period of change and work more closely with our partner organisations.”

Nicola Hartley, director of organisational development, said: “I feel pleased and proud about this year’s results. What matters most to us is that our staff feel motivated and positive about working here, and we have been working hard to create a spirit of team working across the organisation, listening to staff about what it feels like to work here and acting on what they tell us.”