Our organisational commitment to anti-racism and anti-discrimination

People from Black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to experience unfairness in NHS organisations like ours, whether as members of staff or patients.

It’s a similar picture for other minoritised groups, such as women or disabled people or people from LGBTQ+ or religious communities.

In general, Black, Asian and other minoritised groups have poorer health outcomes and face more barriers in accessing high quality healthcare. NHS staff in these groups are more likely to be subject to disciplinary action, have less career progression and report higher levels of bullying and abuse. There are multiple and complex reasons for these inequalities but discrimination and racism – conscious and unconscious – are key factors.

This is not acceptable and, while we have been making progress in tackling racism and discrimination in our organisation, we must do much more to create genuine fairness and inclusion for all our staff, patients and local communities. We need everyone to play a role as we take a systematic approach to challenging and changing everything we do.

Through discussions with and between our staff and local community groups, we have identified the commitments we need to deliver to become a truly anti-racist and anti-discriminatory organisation. Our executive management team and board are accountable for these commitments but every leader has a role to play in ensuring their delivery.
 

We are committed to:

• Building an organisational culture rooted in our values – to be kind, expert, collaborative, and aspirational – and the behaviours our values demand.  
• Creating an environment where all our staff, patients and local communities feel safe, supported and empowered, where racism or any other form of discrimination is always noticed, reported and acted upon quickly and decisively.
• Developing strategies, policies and processes that actively seek to remove and prevent inequity.
• Promoting shared decision-making and co-production, ensuring all our staff have the time, skills and resources to be part of improvement work and that our patients and communities have meaningful opportunities to be involved too.
• Tackling the risks inherent within hierarchical structures for cliques and negative dynamics to take hold. 
• Embedding reflection, storytelling and discussion in our day-to-day activities to help build awareness and understanding of racism and discrimination and to be constantly alert to its impacts.  
• Setting out our goals for equity – and specifically for becoming an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory organisation – and measuring our progress towards them, transparently and proactively. 
• Valuing and celebrating inclusion and diversity, ensuring achievements and successes are recognised fully and fairly.