STAFF at Princess Margaret Hospital are stressed out and over stretched but they are proud of the work they do.

These are the findings of a snapshot staff survey which attracted more than 1,500 responses.

Of those who replied to the survey, 68 per cent believe the trust is a friendly organisation and two thirds of staff (64 per cent) said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their present job.

And 60 per cent felt that everyone working in the trust was willing to put themselves out to deliver an excellent service.

Only 13 per cent said they were dissatisfied with their job.

In addition, half of those who responded felt proud if their organisation did well.

But the questionnaire also drew a picture of the enormous stress that the hospital workers are under, with many departments complaining of a lack of staff.

Worryingly for the trust, 40 per cent of respondents said the atmosphere at work was getting worse with only 16 per cent believing that it was improving.

And two thirds of staff describe their work as stressful although a third said the atmosphere was good or fairly good with a further third describing it as OK.

The vast majority, 81 per cent, reported that they were working flat out to do what was expected of them and nearly half (47 per cent) felt they did not have the time to do the work expected of them.

PMH human resources director Paul Bentley said: "The responses have provided us with a wealth of valuable information which we can use to make improvements. We believe the exercise was of huge benefit in our drive to make our trust a better place to work because we now have a clear insight into the areas which are causing most concern.

"Some of the responses were encouraging, others were critical but they all gave us food for thought."

The survey was carried out by sending a postal questionnaire to the 3,164 full and part-time workers employed by Swindon and Marlborough NHS trust.