The General Practice Staff Survey (GPSS) is now open. 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.
Achieving full coverage of the survey in primary care is a significant challenge, so following successful pilots which tested approaches, we have offered all ICBs the opportunity to run the survey throughout their general practice teams. This roll out has been supported by the guidance developed from our initial pilots, so systems can be confident it has been developed and supported by their peers.
Overview of sign up to the GPSS
21 ICBs signed up to coordinate access to the October 2023 survey. The remaining systems were unable to rollout to general practice this year due to a range of internal and external reasons. Most have committed to learn from the progress made in October 2023 survey and are keen to rollout in October 2024 survey cycle.
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.
Not all practices, PCNs and federations within participating systems were able or chose to return a staff list within the deadline.
A full list of participating sites can be found on the FutureNHS platform here. You may need to register and join to access.
If you are in a participating site but did not receive a survey invitation, it is likely because your general practice employing organisation did not submit a staff list to participate. Interested colleagues are encouraged to discuss with their organisations.
Key points on Confidentiality and the GPSS
- Responses to the survey from individuals will be confidential and comply with internationally recognised market research standards.
- We aim to provide the same data quality and as methodologically sound as the existing survey.
- DPIA – 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 working on this pilot 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.
