Canberra Hospital staff don't trust management: survey results

Snapshot results from an organisation-wide survey released this week also found 46 per cent of employees had been exposed to occupational violence in the past 12 months.

It was the first wide-ranging survey conducted since a damning culture review was handed down last year, finding troubling levels of bullying and harassment.

More than 4000 staff from the service, which oversees Canberra Hospital, took part in the survey - a 57 per cent response rate.

It found only 29 per cent of employees felt a high level of trust in the executive management team and only 31 per cent agreed that the service introduced change that was well planned and patient focused.

The survey found most staff were proud of the work they did and agreed it was meaningful.

It found 79 per cent of employees agreed that most of their team members were quick to step in and help each other.

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Canberra Health Services CEO Bernadette McDonald said the service had improved significantly since 2015.

"We're not where we want to be," she said.

"It's definitely demonstrating improvement and we're heading in the right direction.

"Not every part of it has improved and we will continue to use the results to really target our improvement activities across the organisation.

"This is actually a very positive story in terms of the information that we've gained."

She conceded management had to build more trust with the broader staff, saying the survey was about staff feeling heard.

"Building trust takes time," she said.

"Yes it does concern me, and yes I do want to improve."

Addressing staff last week, Ms McDonald said the executive team had a lot of work to do to gain the trust of the rest of the organisation.

But she said responses to 51 questions were better than the last survey, six were worse and 19 the same.

Among the results that were worse were people's trust that behaviour would be appropriately managed.

Ms McDonald said concerns about favouritism were a continued theme throughout the survey results.

Opposition health spokeswoman Vicki Dunne said work to address poor culture was "clearly not working".

"People don't want to listen to people's complaints, there's a lip service paid to people's complaints," she said.

"You have to believe people who raise concerns.

"I deal with disgruntled and disaffected employees all the time.

"Often it's just being put through the ringer time and time again and not being listened to."