19.11.15
NHS managers must focus on stamping out staff discrimination – Stevens
NHS England boss Simon Stevens is calling on NHS managers to do more in stamping out workforce discrimination after a King’s Fund report showed wide variations across the country.
The analysis, commissioned by NHS England using data from 2014, assessed staff experience at work – pinpointing varying instances of discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and disability status across trusts.
The highest levels of discrimination were observed in ambulance trusts but, contrary to all other providers, women in them were not less likely to report experiencing discrimination than men.
Reported levels of discrimination were highest for Black employees, while all other non-White groups were far more likely to experience issues than White employees.
But disabled staff also reported very high levels of discrimination – the highest amongst all the protected characteristics groups.
And although people from all religions reported incidences, these were far more prevalent within staff of Muslim faith.
Speaking at the Managers in Partnership annual conference in London, Stevens used the opportunity to remind organisations that the new Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES), due out next April, would provide the impetus and accountability needed to make improvements in the health service.
“By introducing a new WRES, we have chosen to hold up a mirror to the NHS each year to ask how it looks and feels to the people devoting their professional lives to looking after patients and the communities we serve.
“Today’s new report paints an important picture of what is happening. It represents a call to action for everyone in the NHS,” he said.
The WRES will require NHS organisations to demonstrate progress against a number of indicators of workforce equality, particularly to address the low levels of workers of Black and minority ethnic backgrounds within boards.
Work is also underway to extend this to sexual orientation and disability.
As well as painting a clearer picture of the NHS workforce, the think tank’s report also outlined a series of measures staff could do both at individual and team levels to address inequalities.
Importantly, it detailed how a healthy culture of inclusion is closely associated to better quality care, thus recommending that every organisation assess its culture at least every two years.
But it also underlined the importance of clear national policies and guidance on how to develop these climates for inclusion, calling on the NHS to set national standards for all health and social care providers.
Its authors concluded: “There is a clear and compelling need to cultivate a more diverse and effective NHS leadership. The moral arguments against discrimination are huge. The human costs are huge. And the impact on patient care is clearly negative or substantial.
“Many individuals, teams, organisations and national bodies in the NHS are now working hard to create climates of fairness, inclusion, compassion and equality. Every individual, team, leader organisation and overseeing body must make comprehensive and sustained efforts to do the same.”