Establish your baseline
Close the survey after a week or two and the report gives you a clear starting point: a score, a frequency, and the most common causes. That is the baseline section of your project write-up done.
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT STAFF SURVEY TEMPLATE
A staff survey for your quality improvement project.
Most QI projects start with a problem everyone complains about and nobody has measured. This template gives you a quick staff survey to establish a baseline: how often the problem happens, what people think causes it, and what they would change. Run it again after your changes and you have before-and-after data.
Free plan available. No card required.What this form is for
Quality improvement depends on measurement, and staff experience is often the quickest thing to measure. Before you design a change, you need to know how big the problem is and what the people closest to it think is causing it. This survey gets you both in a few minutes of each person’s time.
The causes question is built to feed straight into the usual QI tools. The counts give you the bars of a Pareto chart, and the categories map onto the branches of a fishbone diagram. The free-text question collects the change ideas you will test in your PDSA cycles.
Wherever the template says “this process”, rewrite it to name the thing you are improving — handover, discharge letters, the VTE assessment, whatever it is. Specific questions get specific answers. Then use exactly the same wording when you re-measure, so the comparison holds.
The questions, and why they’re there
6 questions · every one can be edited- 01
What is your role?
Multiple choice · Doctor · Nurse or midwife · Healthcare assistant · Pharmacist · AHP · Administrative or clerical · Other
Why it’s asked. Problems look different from different roles. The breakdown shows who is most affected and whose ideas you are hearing.
- 02
How well does this process work at the moment?
1 is very poorly, 5 is very well.
Rating, 1–5
Why it’s asked. Your baseline measure. It is the number you will compare against after each change.
- 03
How often does a problem with this process affect your work?
Multiple choice · Every shift · Most days · About once a week · Less than weekly · Never
Why it’s asked. Frequency is what makes a problem worth fixing, and what makes the case for change to managers.
- 04
What do you think causes the problems?
Choose as many as apply.
Multi-select · Unclear or inconsistent process · Staffing or time pressure · Equipment or IT · Communication between teams · Training or awareness · Documentation
Why it’s asked. The counts become your Pareto chart and the categories your fishbone diagram, so you target the biggest cause first.
- 05
What one change would make the biggest difference?
Long text
Why it’s asked. Ideas from frontline staff are the best source of change ideas to test, and involving them early makes the change easier to adopt.
- 06
Would you be willing to help test changes?
Multiple choice · Yes · Maybe · No
Why it’s asked. Finds your champions. Projects with willing testers on the ward run PDSA cycles much faster.
What you can do with the results
When the form closes — on a date you set, or when you close it — BetterForms writes the report for you: a chart for every question and every written answer, plus themes and an executive summary on plans that include analysis. Print it or save it as a PDF, share a read-only link, or export the raw responses to CSV or Google Sheets. Here is what people do with it.
Re-measure after each change
Duplicate the form and run it again after a PDSA cycle, with exactly the same questions. Comparing the two reports side by side shows whether the change made a difference staff could feel.
Evidence for ARCP and appraisal
Most postgraduate curricula expect trainees to take part in quality improvement, and GMC appraisal asks every doctor for evidence of QI activity. Upload the baseline and re-measure reports to your e-portfolio, alongside any QI assessment your curriculum uses.
Present your project
Charts from the report drop straight into an audit meeting presentation or a poster abstract. Export the raw responses to CSV if you want to build your own run charts.
Make the case for change
Share a read-only report link with your clinical lead or manager. Staff views, in numbers and in their own words, are often what gets a change approved.
Getting good responses
- Replace “this process” with the specific process before you publish — in the form title, the description and the questions.
- Ask ward managers to share the link in safety huddles. A QR code on the staff room wall works well too.
- Keep the wording identical between baseline and re-measure. Even small changes make the comparison harder to defend.
- Tell people what you changed as a result. It is the single best way to get responses the second time round.
Questions
- Is a staff survey enough data for a QI project?
- It is a good start, but most projects pair it with a process measure, such as the proportion of discharge letters completed on time. The survey tells you how staff experience the problem; the process measure tells you how often it happens.
- Do I need approval to run a staff survey?
- QI projects usually do not need research ethics approval, but local policies vary. Check with your trust’s QI or audit team, and register the project if your organisation asks you to.
- Can I add questions specific to my project?
- Yes. The template opens in the editor as your own form, and you can add, remove or reword anything before you publish.
Start with this template
It opens in the editor as your own form. Change any question, then share it with a link or a QR code. Or start from a blank form and let AI draft the questions for you.
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