Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust (NCHC) was recognised for their work on creating compassionate workplaces at NHS England's conference.

The conference, Commissioning Positive Staff Experiences Of Care, was at Skipton House, London, today (Friday) and covered improving staff experiences in healthcare, the connections between staff and patients' experiences of care, and compassionate commissioning.

It was also the launch of NHS England's new model to support commissioning for positive staff experience.

NCHC featured as a case study in the new guide and presented at the conference on their experiences of using an online staff platform to change values and culture.

In staff surveys some staff reported not feeling valued and the trust wanted to find out why. So in June 2016 the trust launched Your Voice Our Future, a dedicated crowdsourcing platform for staff, where every member of staff could log on and have open, honest discussions on various topics, and share their ideas, comments and votes.

The aim was to ensure all staff felt valued, listened to and involved in changes within the trust.

Staff shared discussions on a wide range of topics from information management, recognition, health and wellbeing, to leadership and behaviours.

As a result, the trust was able to make changes which led to a more compassionate workplace, such as a refresh of the trust's behaviour framework and the creation of a leadership promise. More staff now feel valued, listened to and involved in changes within the trust.

Roisin Fallon-Williams, chief executive of NCHC, said; 'Here at NCHC we are working hard to embed our value of compassion and ensuring that we have a culture of compassion – we are really proud that our work in this area is being recognised nationally and we are happy to support others to do likewise.'