NHS doctors would not recommend their own hospitals

Thousands of NHS doctors admitted that they would not want their friends and families treated in their own hospitals because of poor conditions, according to a friends and family test survey. 

In the survey, 203,000 NHS staff were asked to reply whether they “strongly agreed”, “agreed”, “disagreed”, “strongly disagreed”, or had “no view” towards the statement: “If a friend or relative needed treatment, I would be happy with the standard of care provided by this organisation”.

The figures reveal more than 101,000 staff responded, of whom 37% did not recommend treatment and 12% said they “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed”. 

One in four doctors, nurses and other staff members at some trusts rated the standards at their workplace as appalling. 

The trust at Croydon, South London, was held in lowest regard by staff, 30% of whom said they would not recommend it to their family and friends.

On the contrary, the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in East Grinstead, West Sussex, came first as 94% of staff said they would recommend treatment.

The survey also showed that 17% of staff did not think that patient care was their manager’s top priority, 38% had suffered work-related stress in the last 12 months, and 15% of staff had been bullied by patients or relatives of patients.

The report acts as an early warning to the country’s crumbling health services and calls for major changes to the system, including tougher hospital inspections and laws to prevent cover-ups. 

NHS bosses said the release of the report is “one of the darkest days of the health service’s history but the team must turn it into an opportunity to build a better NHS for patients”.

Aastha Gill