Nurses at Shropshire’s two biggest hospitals are not happy with the level of care they feel they can offer patients – with many saying they do not understand their job role.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust finished in the bottom 20 per cent of health trusts in the country for the amount of staff who are happy with the quality of work and patient care they are able to deliver, according to a new survey.

Meanwhile at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry, nurses have criticised the communication between senior management, with the number of nurses suffering work-related stress in the last 12 months being above average.

The National NHS Staff Survey carried out last year by the Healthcare Commission reveals that only 55 per cent of nurses at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust felt satisfied with the quality of work and patient care they are able to deliver – seven points below the national average.

Good

In another blow to management, only 40 per cent recommended the trust as a good place to work, while only 37 per cent agreed that they understood their job role.

At the Gobowen hospital only 21 per cent of staff reported good communication between senior management and staff – 10 points below the average.

However, key areas where the Shrewsbury and Telford Trust performed well include the number of staff who have been appraised in the past 12 months, the availability of hand-washing materials and the percentage of staff appraised with personal development plans in the past year – all of which place the trust in the best 20 per cent of acute trusts in the country.

Trust managers today said the survey covered 10 areas and said even in the section covering the amount of staff feeling satisfied with the quality of work and patient care, overall they were still in the top 20 per cent of acute trusts.

A spokesman for the trust said: “We recognise there are areas where we can still improve, but as this survey demonstrates we have successfully made many improvements in the past 12 months.”

A total of 488 staff at trust took part in the survey.

By Russell Roberts