Two Point Hospital: How to improve morale and train staff

Two Point Hospital is now available on consoles, so here are our top tips for running a better healthcare system than the Tories.

Based on the classic Theme Hospital, Two Point Hospital takes all the best bits, gives it a fresh coat of paint and lets you create a perfect holistic environment - or a dangerous yet profitable cash cow, if you prefer.

Alongside researching how to treat new diseases, creating the perfect ward and deciding whether to charge patients a fortune for routine care, you'll need to recruit, train and retain staff. Training staff and improving the hospital's morale takes time and it isn't limited to just doctors - you'll need to train and take care of your nurses and domestic staff, too.

Once you've worked through the tutorials, you'll be able to access better staff, different types of rooms and treatments but for now, let's take a look at how to make your hospital the best place to work.

Two Point Hospital: How to train staff

Now that you've recruited some decent staff, you can start investing in their training. To get started, you'll need to build a Training Room, which you can access after you've played through the third hospital. Decide what staff member you want to train - for example, you might want to train your receptionist in customer service - then click on the lectern in the training room.

If you have a staff member with the appropriate qualification or skills, they can train other staff members. Otherwise, you'll need to hire a trainer which will set you back $10,000, so it's quite the investment if your hospital is a little strapped for cash. There's no fee if you use a member of staff to train others, so there's an argument for spending more on better staff upfront earlier in the game.

Not all qualifications and skills are immediately available, either, and you might need to wait for a later stage in the game before you can train your staff in particular subjects. There's also Training Units to consider, with one Training Unit being worth one second. You'll need to decide whether you can spare a receptionist or nurse for 240 Training Units/ seconds, or whether you have the funds to hire a temp.

There are also Training Modifiers which affect the training time. Every trainer has a Trainer Speed, which can be over 100% if they are particularly efficient. This means that the time to train a member of staff would be reduced significantly. The other variable is Training Speed, meaning that some trainees are faster studies than others. You can also add items to the Training Room that will give it a Training Speed Boost, such as more desks, Encyclopedia bookcases and Anatomy models.

Different staff traits will yield different results, too:

• Teacher Masterclass qualification provides +50% Teaching Speed and Learning Speed.
• The Fast Learner trait gives +50% Learning Speed bonus.
• The Teacher trait will boost Teaching Spped by 50%.
• The Stupid trait gives staff a -25% Learning Speed penalty.

Once a staff member gains enough experience, their circle will glow white and they'll be eligible for a promotion. You'll get a prompt from them asking you to consider a promotion, with a quick promotion resulting in an increase in staff happiness, which boosts your staff morale. You can set them a modest or ludicrous pay increase, which will make them happier, too. Most staff can be promoted to Rank 5: World Class, though it takes quite a lot of training and experience to get there.

Two Point Hospital: How to improve staff morale

Once you've hired a staff member and have trained them up a little, you'll need to build facilities that will keep them happy. Having a decent break policy and well-stocked, accessible break rooms will help keep them happy, as well as investing in training opportunities, increasing pay and keeping the hospital clean. Having a good staff compliment means that your staff can take regular breaks without sacrificing patient safety and helps keep things running smoothly.

Make sure there are high-quality food and drinks machines near or in break rooms and treatment areas, as well as trying to create Prestige rooms by adding decorations, beds, toilets and windows. Simply put: you need to make a room you'd be happy to spend your working and break hours in IRL.

Other things to consider are the temperature of the hospital - you don't want your staff working in sweltering conditions - and how attractive the hospital is, which you can improve with more decorations, quick access to toilets and easy-to-navigate corridors.

Combine the two of these and you'll have happy, productive staff who'll make you a tonne of money and heal the sick in record time, as well as hitting that elusive three-star hospital rating.

Two Point Hospital is now available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.