Young staff have 'different outlook' - NHS boss

Hannah Coffey took up the post as the trust's chief executive in 2023

An NHS boss says the health service needs to "encourage and motivate" its younger workers to prevent them from leaving early.

Hannah Coffey, chief executive of North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, says more than half of the NHS workforce is now millennial-age or younger, meaning they are in their 20s, 30s and early 40s.

"They just have a very different outlook on life, for understandable reasons," Ms Coffey told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

The trust, which runs Peterborough City, Hinchingbrooke and Stamford and Rutland hospitals, manages the acute care of about 850,000 people and employs 7,400 members of staff.

Ms Coffey said future generations "actually get a bad press" but urged NHS bosses to "really genuinely understand what motivates the workforce of the future".

She said medical students paid tens of thousands of pounds to train but many left in their second year of practicing, with similar patterns in nursing training.

"That says something about not just the NHS, but things that we need to do to encourage and motivate the generation of the future," she said.

'Most challenging'

Ms Coffey, who took up the post last year, said she wanted to create an environment where staff felt listened to, and observed that younger workers did not tend to hold back.

"Our younger staff have no problem telling me what they think about the organisation," she said.

"I spend a lot of time out and about and they tell me, and that's great."

She said Christmas was often the "most challenging" time of the year for staff, but added that there were plenty of things to look forward to.

A new treatment centre is due to open at Stamford and Rutland in the spring, with two wards also being built at Peterborough City Hospital.

There are plans for a new hospital at Hinchingbrooke by 2030, where the existing building has structural issues relating to concrete panels used in some of its walls and roof.

"It's very exciting," said Ms Coffey.

"Building a new hospital is a real responsibility – it's not just an asset for the health service, but an asset for the whole community."