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 The National Health Service(NHS) Service Delivery and Organisation Research and Development

 Programme(SDO) has commissioned a national investigation of the causes of poor and good in-

 patient staff morale.In-patient staff morale can have an effect on the well being,health and welfare

 of patients. There are a number of initiatives which are underway to try and improve the quality of

 inpatient care in the United Kingdom. It is thought that these initiatives can succeed if a skilled

 in-patient workforce of staff who are satisfied with their work can be retained. There are problems

 with hiring and keeping staff, large numbers of staff vacancies, higher costs in using job agencies,

 and the regular use of agency staff and the resulting higher costs have also been identified.

These problems reduce the quality of care for patients and increase the costs to both staff and

 the services.

The study commissioned by the SDO will:

1. Investigate factors associated with in-patient staff morale, for example things like job stress,

 staffing levels, bed occupancy, staff decision making,and staff support.

2. Compare morale between ward and community mental health teams(CMHT) and crisis

 resolution team(CRT) staff.

3. Study how good and poor morale last over time and their association with staff changes

 and sickness rates.

4. Use case studies to look at what contributes to good and poor staff morale.

5. Investigate the persistence of high and low morale.

6. Investigate the relationship between morale and turnover and sickness rates