The front page of today’s Examiner newspaper reflects the results of a recent survey which 49 Doctors – around one sixth of Manx Care’s medical staffing workforce – responded to. To provide context, the survey was only sent to around 300 colleagues (the medical staffing workforce) out of the 2,910 people who work for Manx Care in substantive roles.
The results of this survey were sent to Isle of Man Newspapers anonymously. As an organisation, we are really disappointed by this.
The response that was shared with Isle of Man Newspapers is outlined below, and is being shared with all media outlets for transparency, and to contextualise how this survey was conducted.
Teresa Cope, CEO of Manx Care, commented:
“Developing a strong, supportive and inclusive culture is one of Manx Care’s four strategic priorities. We have taken significant strides to transform our culture across the course of the last year, and I’m really proud of the work that we have collectively achieved together to date to do this. I know from speaking with many of our colleagues that they feel the same. The only way we will continue to make progress here is by working together to share open and honest feedback, and being clear on our shared vision for Manx Care. My door is always open for any colleague to share feedback with me – as it has been across the course of the last year – and I very much welcome the opportunity to speak with any colleague who wishes to talk to me about our culture.”
Manx Care’s Executive Medical Director, Dr. Sree Andole, and its Clinical Directors across the medical staffing workforce (Dr. Gareth Davies, Dr. Ishaku Pam, Dr. Marina Hudson, Dr. Siva Balasubramanian, Dr. Pradumal Thakker, Dr. Partha Vaiude, Mr. Andre Risha), added: “As a collective, we have worked incredibly hard across the last year to identify the long-standing cultural issues that exist within the medical staffing workforce group, and have begun to take steps to address these in line with the broader programme of work to not only transform Manx Care’s culture, but to transform the way that Manx Care operates so that we can achieve our aspiration to become the best small-Island integrated health and care system in the world. Whilst some of the issues can be addressed quickly, others will take time to overcome. We remain firmly and wholeheartedly committed to developing workforce plans that will improve the engagement with our medical staffing colleagues, and are pleased that we have a baseline assessment from which we can work. We would like to echo the organisation’s disappointment that the results of the BMA cultural survey have been shared anonymously with a media outlet rather than addressed with us directly.”
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Response issued to IOM Newspapers – 22 April 2022
The British Medical Association (BMA) is the trade union and professional body for doctors and medical students in the UK.
The BMA’s Culture of Care Barometer is a survey that is used to measure cultural engagement within medical staffing groups across UK NHS Trusts. This year for the first time, doctors based at Noble’s Hospital were invited to participate in the survey. Just under one quarter of the medical staffing workforce completed this. We are really pleased that we have been able to give our colleagues the opportunity to share their views in structured and recognised way and – for the first time – to be able to establish a cultural baseline from which we can move forward. Developing a strong, supportive working culture and promoting engagement is one of Manx Care’s strategic priorities, and so we very much welcome the opportunity for open dialogue and feedback with our colleagues, which this creates. Through the survey colleagues have highlighted some important ways in which they feel that they and management colleagues can work more closely together, and we look forward to working with them to develop plans which will support the achievement of this. We would like to place on record our thanks to all of the colleagues who took the time to provide their feedback and engage with the BMA survey; without sharing open and honest feedback, we will not be able to develop the culture of our organisation.
Prakash Thiagarajan, a Consultant at Noble’s Hospital and one of the BMA staff-side representatives, added:
“The BMA and staff side representatives are working with Manx Care’s senior leadership team to address the feedback highlighted in the survey by some of the respondents. We do not wish for this process to be derailed or distracted by a public debate, and are firmly committed to the development of a positive working culture across the organisation, alongside all of the other groups who are striving to achieve this.”
