THE REGION’S NHS foundation trust has topped the charts in providing equal opportunities for its staff.

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been named the best NHS employer in England for providing equal opportunities for career progression and promotion.

The trust came top in the results of the 2016 NHS Staff Survey published this week, with 95 per cent of health and care staff in Northumberland and Tyneside happy with the opportunities available – the highest score of all acute trusts in England.

The trust also received the best scores in the country among acute trusts for staff feeling confident and secure in reporting unsafe clinical practice and staff feeling Northumbria makes effective use of feedback from patients and service users.

Executive director of human resources and organisational development at the Trust, Ann Stringer, said: “We are passionate about nurturing our staff and opening up opportunities for them to move forward in their career, regardless of their role.

“Growing and developing our own workforce is very important to us and we are very proud that our staff have rated us best in the country for equal opportunities for career progression and promotion.

“As an open and transparent trust, we have worked hard to create a culture where our staff feel able to report any concerns.

“We also place great emphasis on using feedback from patients to continually improve the quality and experience of care we provide and it is most satisfying that our staff recognise the significance of this.

“Amid increasing challenges for the NHS as a whole, we will continue to look at ways where we can continue to improve our staff’s experience of working for us, which will in turn enable us to provide even better care to our patients.”

The NHS Staff Survey seeks the views of staff working across England and is the largest survey of staff opinion in the UK.