NHS People Pulse

Listening and responding to our NHS people is as important as ever.

The People Pulse is a national online pulse survey, developed to support local listening and employee engagement activities in the NHS. Results provide a regular national, regional, system and local view of employee experience, and inform actions to improve the experiences of our people and patients.

Together with the annual NHS Staff Survey and National Quarterly Pulse Survey, the survey continues to allow exploration of various aspects of employee experience and sentiment of our NHS people. It takes only five minutes to complete and asks employees how supported and informed they may feel, and what support would make the biggest difference to their experience at work.

Whilst the People Pulse is running at a monthly frequency; the regularity of use can be determined by local organisations. It is sponsored by NHS England therefore local organisations can benefit from using this tool for free.

The People Pulse can be used as a method of data collection for the National Quarterly Pulse Survey which is in the NHS Standard Contract for all NHS trusts to participate in.

Organisations can express their interest in taking part in the People Pulse by contacting the NHS England Staff Engagement team via email england.peoplepulse@nhs.net.

Benefits of People Pulse

  • Free to use – NHS England currently sponsors this survey and will aim to continue this support.
  • Voluntary and offers full anonymity – the survey is accessed via a universal link where respondents self-select their employer and can opt out of demographic information.
  • Low burden and easy to implement – all maintenance and design of the survey is handled by NHS England, and organisations only need to promote the survey on a regular basis; a suite of images and templates to support local communication teams is provided.
  • Quick to complete – the set of survey questions is designed to take five minutes to complete.
  • Personalised to local organisations – offers the opportunity to add a local hierarchy and local questions.
  • Quick results and response numbers – results are available within three working days from the close of each monthly survey wave via a results dashboard, with response number tracking available throughout the waves.
  • Benchmarking – each organisation can compare their results against NHS average, organisation type average, and trust type average (if applicable).
  • Prompts and enables action – snapshot insights provided, with features (e.g., thematic analysis aligned to the People Promise, key driver analysis of employee engagement and positive mood, demographic breakdown) to support action.
  • Created in collaboration– a number of colleagues from local organisations contribute to the design of the survey.

Case studies