King's College London

Academics found that engaging with nurses to ensure staff health and wellbeing were prioritised, good work was recognised and feedback was acted upon had a demonstrable effect on whether nursing staff chose to stay within a hospital or move on.

And the academics also found better retention of senior nursing staff had the additional benefit of improving the retention of doctors.

The findings were revealed in the study Staff engagement, co-workers' complementarity and employee retention: evidence from English NHS hospitals, co-authored by Alberto Vesperoni (King’s College London), Giuseppe Moscelli and Melisa Sayli (University of Surrey), and Marco Mello (University of Aberdeen and University of Surrey).

For their study, the researchers drew on detailed employee data from 190 NHS hospital trusts over a 10-year period, from 2009-10 to 2019-20, as well as employee satisfaction data from the annual NHS Staff Survey from the same period.

The staff survey provides information on NHS staff experience at work through questions about job aspects, health, workplace culture and wellbeing, along with key demographic characteristics. More than a million NHS workers are invited to complete the survey each year.

The researchers found a one standard deviation increase in nurse engagement as recorded in the staff survey was associated with a 16 per cent standard deviation increase in their retention within an NHS trust. They also found a 10 per cent increase in nurse retention was associated with a 1.6 per cent increase in doctor retention.

“Moreover, the evidence gathered suggests that increasing staff engagement can help to attenuate the attrition of hospital nurses, at least during periods without high inflation and soaring costs of living.”

The researchers said hospital managers could improve nurse engagement by guaranteeing a working environment where episodes of bullying, discrimination, excessive work-related stress and working while in poor health were minimised. Ensuring nurses saw their good work recognised, and offering opportunities for them to use their skills and adequate materials to do their job were also key factors.

They added: “On top of this, managers with effective communication, involving staff in important decisions and acting on staff feedback, are likely to keep their hospital nurses more engaged and, indirectly, retained. In particular, having effective communication and caring for their staff's health and wellbeing is key to unlock a higher engagement in older nurses, who are critical to be retained because they have the most experience and so are the drivers of the positive spillover on senior doctor retention.”