NHS mutuals improve patient care, say health experts

14 Jul 14
More NHS organisations should be encouraged to become staff-led mutuals, an independent review has recommended after finding that higher levels of staff engagement led to better patient care.

By Vivienne Russell | 15 July 2014

More NHS organisations should be encouraged to become staff-led mutuals, an independent review has recommended after finding that higher levels of staff engagement led to better patient care.

The Review of Staff Engagement and Empowerment was commissioned by care minister Norman Lamb in November and chaired by King’s Fund chief executive Chris Ham.

Issuing its conclusions today, Ham said the review panel had uncovered ‘compelling’ evidence that more engaged staff deliver higher quality care.

‘[This is] a simple truth that should be acted on by all NHS organisations,’ Ham said.

‘Increasing staff engagement is first and foremost the responsibility of NHS leaders, from the board to the ward. But it is also time to give serious consideration to the role staff-led mutuals could play in increasing staff engagement and delivering benefits to patients.’

The review found that as well as better patient care, higher levels of staff engagement resulted in lower sickness absence levels and lower turnover. It also cited emerging evidence that mutuals, which give employees more of a stake in their organisation, can increase levels of staff engagement.

As such, NHS organisations, including hospitals, should have greater freedom to become mutuals on a voluntary basis, the review concluded.

It called on the government to launch a programme of ‘pathfinders’ to gather more evidence on the benefits of mutualisation and whether it should be scaled up across the NHS.

It also highlighted the need for more proportionate regulation to reduce the requirements on NHS providers to report up to national watchdogs.

NHS organisations needed to be able to ‘look out to their patients, staff and stakeholders, rather than up to national bodies,’ Ham said.

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