“There is nothing more unfair than the equal treatment of unequal people”

This is a quote from Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and presented to us at the August NHSE workshops on Equality and Diversity designed for AHP leads and run by Thomas Kearney, Deputy CAHPO.  Julie Dowdney, BIOS Vice Chair, attended the Swindon meeting and Veronica Greenwood, BIOS Chair, attended the Leeds meeting. We have prepared some take home messages from the events, and also some actions that BIOS will explore to ensure this stays high on our professional agenda.

Workforce Race Equality Standard

As you may be aware, the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) was introduced in April 2015 to ensure employees from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace.  The most recent report of the WRES data for NHS Trusts can be found here https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/workforce-race-equality-standard-wres-data-report-2017-v2.pdf

The ethnic diversity within Hospital Medicine = 40%

The ethnic diversity within Nursing = 22%

The ethnic diversity of AHP’s – 12.2% overall but this ranges from 3.4% to 23.5% – You will all be delighted to know that the highest diversity within the AHP professions at 23.5% is found in Orthoptics.  Whilst this is based on ESR data, which we know is not completely accurate, we should be proud of this statistic but there is still much more we can do.

WRES Indicators

Workforce data by Trust is collected across 9 WRES indicators and some are reported through HR ESR and recruitment processes and some through the staff survey.

Here is a brief snapshot of the facts across the 9 WRES indicators where BME staff are:

• less likely to progress through the higher bands and a glass ceiling often reached at band 5 (only 7.6% of band 8a-9 are BME)
• less likely to be appointed from shortlisting
• more likely to enter disciplinary processes
• less likely to access non mandatory training and CPD
• more likely to report increased experiences of bullying and harassment from patients and the public
• more likely to report increased experience of buying and harassment from their manager
• more likely to report less opportunity for career progression and higher experiences of discrimination
• under represented at board level is only 7.4%.

Many middle managers are not given the break down for their particular area but this can be requested from your workforce team. In an ideal situation the percentage of BME staff in a Trust or organisation should reflect the percentage of BME in the population they serve and each NHS organisation will set its own target for BME representation.

Hence “positive” discrimination is OK because people of BME have to try harder and do more to achieve half as much and keep remembering that the more complex the problem or tasks to solve the greater the benefits of diversity.  Organisations who have provided evidence of good practice in the WRES 4 pillars (enabling people, embedding accountability, encouraging transformation and evidencing outcomes) have seen improvements in all WRES indicators not just for their BME staff but across the white staff too and reductions in discrimination.

Professional Body Actions

In orthoptics as we have a slightly higher % of BME representation than other AHPs, and we also see more representation at higher bands than our sister professions but what can we offer as a professional body to support the E and D agenda?

We will:

• Work with the BIOS work shadow lead to continue to increase orthoptic ambassadors and target schools with high BME populations for recruitment into Undergraduate courses
• Work with the HEIs to monitor BME representation at UG level.
• Work with our new graduate lead to track new graduate recruitment to posts and opportunity for leadership training in early career posts
• Have an E and D lead on the BIOS Board
• Provide E and D training for all BOSTU reps
• Develop a monitoring process for BOSTU cases for BME and white orthoptists.
• Work with heads on recruitment awareness and strategies to ensure career progression and opportunities are open to all staff.

Veronica Greenwood, Chair                           Julie Dowdney, Vice-chair