DUDLEY hospitals have faced a backlash on social media after being hailed as being "among the best places to work in the NHS".

Around 30 comments were posted on the Stourbridge News Facebook site after the story about The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust's inclusion in a list of the top places to work in the health service appeared.

Some were incredulous, with Maria Birt posting "Is this a joke?", Claire Longley commenting "who decided that lol" and Heidi Elizabeth Salt writing simply "Haha!!!".

Others appeared to be from members of staff, with Francesca Valentina Romaya posting "after five years working there I think not" and "I challenge them to find staff that like it there."

And Karen Villa wrote: "I too am a Sister there, I too, worked my way up the ranks.....Dotted every i, crossed every t.....I'm entitled to an opinion, and in my opinion - the conditions we work in are worse than ever!"

Robert Horton, however, posted that the hospitals had done him "proud", adding that he was "on death's door last year and look at me now".

Leading industry publications, the Health Service Journal and Nursing Times listed The Dudley Group, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, as well as the Corbett and Dudley Guest outpatient centres in Stourbridge and Dudley, among the top 40 acute hospital trusts in the country for their work with staff.

The top 40, including The Dudley Group, were said to have worked hard to promote "great staff engagement" and to create an environment where people could enjoy what they did.

The "Best Places to Work" list is compiled using data from the annual NHS staff survey and looks at seven areas said to be "key to a happy workplace" - leadership and planning, corporate culture and communication, role satisfaction, work environment, relationship with supervisors, training, development and resources, employee engagement and satisfaction.

Health service union Unison agreed that management and staff at The Dudley Group had worked hard to improve staff relationships - and that was now "bearing fruit".

Although the hospitals group has cut its workforce by more than 200 in a bid to turn the trust around from being £6.4 million in the red, Unison's Birmingham and the Black Country team leader Tony Rabaiotti said: "Staff and management sides are able to talk to bring the number of redundancies down - it's all done through discussion.

"If you can get that relationship, the winners are not only the staff but the patients as well."

Paula Clark, chief executive of The Dudley Group, said she had been "absolutely thrilled" to hear the trust had been named as one of the very best employers in the whole of the NHS.

She described staff as "our most valuable asset" and added that the trust had worked hard to make sure they knew how much they were appreciated for their commitment and dedication.