Only Part of the Bank Member Story

The NHS bank worker survey has been published, and if you blinked you might have missed it. There has been some coverage. The Health Service Journal focused on what it described as a growing “motivation gap” between bank and substantive staff. Other outlets picked up similar themes. Bank workers, it seems, are more enthusiastic, more likely to look forward to work, and report slightly higher engagement scores than their substantive colleagues. At a time when the main NHS Staff Survey is pointing in the opposite direction, that is, on the face of it, a striking finding.

And yet, it has not really landed. Perhaps because, when you stop and think about it, it is not particularly surprising. A workforce that has actively chosen flexibility, autonomy, and a degree of distance from organisational life is always likely to report a different relationship with work. If anything, it would be more concerning if bank workers were reporting the same levels of burnout, disengagement, and organisational frustration as their substantive colleagues. So the headlines are interesting, but they are not especially revealing. More interesting is what sits just beneath them.

The narrative we are being given

If you follow the coverage through, a fairly consistent story emerges. Bank workers are less burnt out. Fewer report feeling exhausted at the thought of another shift. Emotional exhaustion is down. There are modest improvements in perceived support from the bank team. Engagement scores are holding up better than in the substantive workforce. More people say they look forward to work. More describe themselves as enthusiastic. Alongside this, there are some familiar areas of concern. Experiences of physical violence remain significantly higher than for substantive staff, particularly among staff from minority ethnic backgrounds. Opportunities for career development are declining. Fewer bank workers feel able to improve their workplace or influence change. Fewer feel supported to develop their potential.

It is, in many ways, a balanced picture. Some things improving, some things deteriorating, a broadly positive narrative with a few important caveats. But it is also, I would suggest, a slightly misleading one.

The problem with the questions

What the survey is doing, quite consistently, is asking bank workers to respond to a set of questions that are still anchored in a substantive employment model.

• Do you feel engaged with your organisation?

• Do you feel involved in change?

• Are you able to develop your career within your organisation?

These are reasonable questions. But they are not neutral ones. They assume a particular kind of employment relationship. One built on continuity, progression, organisational belonging, and a relatively stable team environment. And that is not the reality for many bank workers. So when the results show that only 57 percent of bank staff feel able to improve the work of their team or department, compared to around 70 percent of substantive staff, we are invited to interpret that as a deficit. Similarly, when 42 percent of bank workers feel able to make improvements happen, compared to 54 percent of substantive colleagues, or when only 55 percent report receiving feedback from their immediate manager compared to 66 percent, the implicit conclusion is that something is lacking.

But what if the more relevant question is not why these scores are lower, but whether we are asking the right questions in the first place? Because the bank workforce is not simply a less engaged version of the substantive workforce. It is a differently configured one, and in many cases, a highly experienced one.

Development without direction

This becomes particularly evident when you look at the data on development and support. Forty two percent of bank staff feel there are opportunities for them to develop, compared to 51 percent of substantive staff. Opportunities to improve knowledge and skills sit at 60 percent versus 68 percent. Access to clinical supervision drops to 47 percent, compared to 59 percent for substantive colleagues. The articles quite rightly highlight these as areas of concern. Declining career development opportunities, in particular, are called out explicitly. But again, the analysis stops at the point of comparison. It does not ask what “development” means in the context of bank work. It does not explore whether bank workers are actively seeking traditional career progression, or whether their priorities sit elsewhere. And it does not interrogate the structural barriers that might sit behind these figures, particularly when it comes to access to supervision, which is fundamental to safe clinical practice.

A twelve point gap in supervision is not simply a reflection of different working patterns. It is a signal that something in the system is not designed with this workforce fully in mind.

The story that is missing entirely

And then there is the part of the story that is not in the survey at all.

Because if you spend any time speaking to bank workers, a very different set of concerns comes through. Not abstract questions about engagement or organisational involvement, but very practical, immediate issues about the viability of bank work itself.

Access to shifts is becoming more constrained. Partly because demand has disappeared as Trusts seek to cut costs, but also because supply has increased: agency workers, facing reduced opportunities, are moving onto the bank. Substantive staff are being offered overtime to improve morale and retention. In some cases, they are being prioritised for shifts ahead of bank only workers. Bank workers describe being bumped from shifts. They talk about shifts simply not appearing. They describe increased competition for the same pool of work.

At the same time, some are finding it difficult to move into substantive roles, even if they want to, because of recruitment freezes. Others are experiencing changes to pay, including movement to the bottom of Agenda for Change bands, with little clarity or recourse. In some areas, access to the bank itself is being restricted for certain staff groups.

None of this is captured in the survey, and yet, for many bank workers, this is the reality that shapes their experience far more than whether they feel able to influence organisational change.

A workforce in transition

What sits behind all of this is a system that is quietly changing. The bank model has, for years, been positioned as a more efficient alternative to agency. A way of retaining flexibility while reducing cost. That logic still holds, but it is now intersecting with a different set of priorities. Financial constraint, productivity expectations, and a renewed focus on making better use of the substantive workforce. The result is a subtle but important shift.

Substantive roles are becoming more flexible. In places, overtime is being used more actively. Internal staffing models are being rethought. And in that context, the distinct role of the bank begins to blur.

For some, that will be positive. For others, particularly those who rely on bank work as a primary source of income, it introduces a level of uncertainty that the model has not, traditionally, accommodated.

So what does the survey actually tell us?

The answer, perhaps uncomfortably, is that it tells us something real but incomplete.

It tells us that bank workers are, in many respects, more positive about their day to day experience of work than their substantive colleagues. It tells us that burnout is lower. That enthusiasm is higher. That some aspects of support are improving. But it also tells us that access to development, supervision, and influence is weaker. That experiences of violence remain high. And that there are emerging inequalities within the workforce itself.

What it does not tell us is whether the model underpinning bank work is still working as intended.

A slightly different conversation

If there is a frustration here, it is not with the survey itself. It is with the limits of the conversation that has followed it. Because the more important questions sit just outside the data. What role do we now expect the bank workforce to play? Is it a flexible supplement to a strengthened substantive workforce? Is it a core component of a modern staffing model? Or is it something that is being gradually squeezed, as other parts of the system adapt?

Until we start asking those questions more directly, we will continue to interpret the data through a lens that does not quite fit. And we will continue to miss the point of what it actually feels like to be a bank worker today.