The General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS) is being rolled out again in 2024. Below further information can be found regarding the GPSS, that may be of use.
Purpose of the Survey
Our NHS Staff Survey is one of the world’s largest workforce surveys. For two decades it has provided the highest standards of rich, quality data to inform our understanding of staff experience.
We want everyone who is part of the NHS to have the opportunity to feedback on their experiences at work. Currently, this opportunity does not exist for those working in primary care. We want to close this gap and understand those unique experiences so we can develop local and national approaches to actively support this vital group in the NHS family.
About the General Practice Staff Survey
- This is the second year of voluntary national rollout of the NHS General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS).
- The survey will run independently of NHS England and to the highest standards of quality and accuracy. Anything you say, will be kept confidential and anonymous.
- The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan and Fuller Stocktake support the extension of NHS Staff Survey into primary care.
- This data has the potential to be a rich source of information to improve the working experience of staff in general practice, and so also improve patient care.
Why the NHS General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS) matters
- Implementing the General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS) will, for the first time, produce standardised, comparable, actionable data which will support improvements to working experience and therefore, recruitment and retention of staff.
- The survey marks a critical step towards the implementation of Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) in primary care settings. This will provide important evidence about the differences in staff experiences.
- The more our NHS staff know their organisations are listening to them and acting on their feedback, the better the outcomes for us and our patients.
- The NHS General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS) will become a rich source of data to support understanding our NHS people’s working experiences and inform actions to improve that experience.
Overview of sign up to the GPSS
21 ICBs signed up to coordinate access to the October 2023 survey. Though not all practices, PCNs and federations within participating systems were able or chose to return a staff list within the deadline, an average 40% response rate was achieved in participating organisations – a truly great response. As of June, 34 ICBs have committed to support the 2024 GPSS which represents a big step-change in participation and therefore representation. The remaining systems were unable to rollout to general practice this year due to a range of internal and external reasons.
Our aim is for the staff survey to form part of the annual cycle across the whole of primary care. We want to work with and learn from systems so ultimately, the survey will be available to every practice, PCN and federation, as well as other primary care teams over the medium to longer term.
A full list of participating sites can be found on the FutureNHS platform here. You may need to register and join to access.
The survey will be run in parallel with the existing secondary care NHS Staff Survey and NHS Staff Survey for bank only workers over October and November with results available around the following spring.
Systems will work with both local and regional colleagues to facilitate the sharing of good practice, in both the running of the GPSS and even more importantly, the use of results to improve the working experience of staff.
Key points on Confidentiality and the GPSS
Data Protect Impact Assessment
A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has established the information governance risk for the use of personal data as low. The survey provider, Picker, is a trusted research institute regularly appointed to conduct the NHS Staff Survey. Picker has robust data privacy and protection processes in place to securely process data on behalf of participating sites. Individual responses will be held by Picker and available only to Picker analysts, with reporting restricted to meet confidentiality requirements.
Staff list data will be securely stored.
The staff lists will be collated and stored in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 and follow the principles of the NHS Confidentiality Code of Practice. The legal basis to allow ICBs to collate staff lists for the purposes of engagement such as staff surveys falls under article 6e of GDPR. The staff list information is collected ‘for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller’.
Staff list data will be securely stored, password protected, and the password shared with Picker via a separate secure email. All staff list data will be saved in a restricted folder on Picker’s secure network and will only be accessible by the researchers working on this pilot. Under no circumstances will staff list data be shared with third parties.
Survey response confidentiality
The survey responses are kept confidential and anonymous, in accordance with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. Unique reference numbers will separate the link between individual and survey response. These numbers will support Picker to track completion rates and send reminders to complete the survey.
Staff survey responses will be returned directly to Picker and held by Picker alone in password-protected files. These are only accessible to a small number of analysts and will not include details of name of staff who completed the survey.
NHSE, ICBs, PCNs, federations and general practices will not have access to the completed questionnaires, or any personal data linked to the survey.
Confidentiality within survey reporting
Reports will not be provided where anonymity could be compromised. Picker will identify the minimum number of responses before suppression is applied to ensure anonymity is protected.
