{"id":4843,"date":"2015-07-16T15:35:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T14:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=4843"},"modified":"2015-07-16T15:36:43","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T14:36:43","slug":"noticeable-by-their-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=4843","title":{"rendered":"Noticeable by their absence"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Unite will play a leading role in tackling race inequality in the health service, which was discussed on Tuesday (July 14) at a conference held by the union, launching its campaign to support black, Asian and ethnic minorities (BAEMs) in NHS workplaces.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe campaign was launched in response to a report published last year which found that race inequality was rife within the health sector \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a problem that has in fact become even worse over the past decade.<\/p>\n

 
\nFindings from the ground-breaking survey led to a substantive change in NHS policy, which will come into effect this year. The new policy, the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES), requires NHS organisations to report how they are addressing race equality issues in a range of staffing areas.<\/p>\n

 
\nAccording to the report, The snowy white peaks of the NHS<\/a>,<\/em> BAEMs are gravely underrepresented in leadership positions in the NHS, even though a substantial part of the workforce are ethnic minorities.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe survey, authored by Roger Kline, a research fellow at Middlesex University and former head of health at a Unite predecessor union, examined NHS trusts in London, where 41 per cent of NHS staff, and 45 per cent of the entire population, are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut at the top of many of these NHS trusts, black and minority ethnic people are all but absent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 40 per cent of London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NHS Trust Boards had no BAEM members at all, while over half of the Trusts either had no black and minority ethnic non-executive members or no executive members.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe report also found that the likelihood of white staff being in either senior or very senior management positions was three times the likelihood of BAEMs being in the same positions.<\/p>\n

 
\nLeading the way<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nUnite assistant general secretary Diana Holland explained the central role that Unite will play in new initiatives to tackle institutional racism in the NHS, with today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conference held to prompt discussion among members and leaders in the sector.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite has organised this conference as another step in its support for tackling race inequality in the NHS,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn 2004, there was a commitment given to tackling underrepresentation of BAEMs throughout the NHS and of dealing better and more effectively with race discrimination. Ten years on, not only has it not got better, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually gotten worse, which is a disgrace.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe as a union are recognising that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a really important role to play in addressing this issue \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially in terms of making sure workplaces are adhering to the new mandatory [WRES] standard.
\nBut Holland emphasised that if race inequalities are ever to be stamped out, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bit has to be more than just about ticking boxes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c important though that is sometimes.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also about a culture change; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also about recognising that if you get race equality right, then it can have a massive impact on job satisfaction for people at work, but also patient care.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAll the information provided today shows that the cost of inequality is really detrimental to the NHS, so in fact, if you invest in properly delivering on race equality, you are also properly delivering on patient care,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added.<\/p>\n

 
\nEvidence-based<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nAuthor of the seminal report, Roger Kline (pictured), who spoke at Tuesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conference, hailed the new NHS WRES standard that aims to seriously tackle race inequalities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/a><\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe change in NHS policy that came about after our report and other research is a solid, evidence-based one,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reasonably optimistic that it will make a significant change in both patient care and workplace equality within the NHS because, for one, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mandatory, and also because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got numbers in it.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe WRES standard <\/a>will encompass nine different metrics. Four metrics will relate to workforce representation in leadership positions, and another four will relate to findings from a national NHS staff survey, which asks staff questions about their experiences with bullying or harassment. The ninth metric calls for NHS boards to be broadly representative of the population they serve.<\/p>\n

 
\nKline explained that many different researchers have found that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a direct link between workplace equality and greater patient satisfaction.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m confident in five years\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 time there will be plenty of evidence after the policy has been implemented that patients will be far better off,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he told UNITElive. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already found that trusts which have fewer race inequalities deliver better care \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so everything we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found so far points to a substantial and welcome change in the future.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite executive committee member in the health sector, Jasmine Suraya, chaired the conference and explained why the discussion the conference had was so important.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re making sure that we have the debate here about what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone wrong in NHS workplaces in terms of tackling race inequality, and how we can take that forward and make it right,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re leading this initiative as a trade union to represent our members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got more than 100,000 members in the health sector, a huge proportion of which are BAEM members, and this number is growing every day,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Suraya added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd so our central aim is to connect with members and make sure they have a leading voice in the discussion.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite acting national officer for BAEM members Calenzo Jarrett-Thorpe (main picture) explained how the conference would be only the starting point of a much wider effort, through comprehensive rep training programmes, to put equalities at the top of the agenda for NHS workplaces.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What we want to do is make sure we take the discussion outside of the corridors, and outside of the realm of theory, and take it into our workplaces to make sure that race inequality is a headline issue for all our reps,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite will play a leading role in tackling race inequality in the health service, which was discussed on Tuesday (July 14) at a conference held by the union, launching its campaign to support black, Asian and ethnic minorities (BAEMs) in NHS workplaces.   The campaign was launched in response to a report published last year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[70,29,242],"wps_subtitle":"Room at the NHS top? Not if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re black ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4843"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4848,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions\/4848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}