Junior doctor engagement: what is it, why does it matter and what the workplace can do to improve it

Abstract

Background Across the world, there is a struggle to balance the provision of adequate healthcare with trained healthcare professionals. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) is struggling with increasing demand coupled with a reduction in funding, an older multimorbid population and rising patient expectations.Objectives The landscape within which doctors practise is constantly changing with increasing devolution, changing political priorities and new technologies, and as a result, we cannot afford to have disengaged staff.Methods Employee engagement is a process, a description of how a business or workplace interacts with its staff. Research has demonstrated that while engagement can improve certain patient outcomes, the manner in which Junior Doctors are employed in the NHS can create many barriers to organisational workplace engagement.Results This discussion focuses on how workplace engagement is being developed across healthcare; and some of the challenges to workplace engagement with Junior Doctors with a focus on issues such as placement durations, demanding workloads and lack of basic provisions for junior staff. It gives simple suggestions for how these barriers can be overcome and how Junior Doctors can be incorporated into teams, resulting in increased workplace engagement and improved patient outcomes.