NHS Staff Survey 2023: key findings

The annual survey, carried out in autumn 2023, covers staff in all NHS trusts in England across all roles. 

This year’s results illustrate an improvement in five of the eight key indicators surveyed, including four People Promise indicators - covering recognition and reward, learning, working flexibly and team working. 

The two other People Promise indicators surveyed, for compassionate and inclusive leadership and whether staff have a voice that counts, remained stable. 

There has been positive progress in improved morale, driven by a reduction in staff saying they were thinking of leaving the NHS, while the measure of staff engagement remained stable.  

Improvements were seen on most health and wellbeing measures, backed by a small fall in the metric indicating experience of bullying, harassment and abuse in the workplace.

Key measures of staff experience also improved, with an increase in staff willing to recommend the NHS as a place to work. 

Similarly, the percentage of staff that would recommend their organisation as a place to get care increased, although this figure is still lower than in 2019. 

On equality and diversity scores were broadly stable, with a small improvement on the measure of inclusion. There remained a significant equality gap in the experience of women, Black Minority Ethnic, disabled and LGBTQ+ staff. 

Read NHS Employers' formal response to the results in our media statement.

Explore the NHS Staff Survey results in more detail on the NHS England website.