Race equality tsar urges boards to focus on diversity
The NHS's first equality and human rights tsar is urging board members to stay focused on diversity after 600 senior NHS leaders began mentoring black and minority ethnic (BME) staff.
The NHS's first equality and human rights tsar is urging board members to stay focused on diversity after 600 senior NHS leaders began mentoring black and minority ethnic (BME) staff.
Surinder Sharma, the first national equality and human rights director for the NHS, was appointed last October to spearhead the service's equality and diversity agenda.
A key priority is promoting NHS chief executive Sir Nigel Crisp's 10-point action plan on leadership and race equality that was launched a year ago.
Within six months Sir Nigel received over 600 responses from senior NHS leaders to his call for mentors for BME staff. Nearly all received training and are now in a mentoring relationship.
Surinder said: "This is a fantastic result and shows that the service's leadership is committed to tackling inequality. "
But this should only be the beginning; I urge board members to follow this excellent example and redouble their efforts to proactively promote the service's diversity goals."
Sir Nigel's plan sets out a strategy for both maximising recruitment and personal development opportunities for staff from BME backgrounds and addressing the specific needs of BME patients and clients.
A specific goal for senior leaders was to include a personal 'stretch' target on race equality as part of their 2004-2005 objectives. It has several elements - mentoring; leadership action; expanding training, development and career opportunities; systematic tracking and celebrating achievements.
Surinder said: "The role of NHS board members in delivering these goals is vital.
"Promoting race equality, and equality generally, should run through everything we do in the NHS and we need to tackle this systematically and professionally.
Equality and diversity need to be explicitly acknowledged as integral to all NHS corporate strategies. If individuals include tackling race equality in their personal objectives and board members champion the equality agenda at board meetings this can only be good for our business in the health economy."
The NHS is the largest single employer of BME staff in England, employing more than 170,000 BME staff - around 13 percent of the NHS workforce.
Progress has been made - for instance, in 2001 around 10 percent of nurses were from BME backgrounds but only one per cent were nursing directors. While this had risen to four per cent by 2004, it still only equates to some 16 staff members in total. On the other hand, in some areas the news is better - over 7.5% of executive directors are from a BME background.
"There has been real progress but this figure is still at least half what it should be. Discrimination still exists in the NHS - the Commission for Racial Equality sees more cases of discrimination from the NHS than any other organisation.
There is no room for complacency and we must stay focused," said Surinder.
"All of us in the NHS need to play your part - it is the responsibility of all of us - and ultimately we will be judged not on what we say, but on what we do, and the results that show progress year on year."
Surinder also stresses that discrimination is not only about race, "There is no room for discrimination of any kind in the NHS, whether it is related to race, age, disability, gender, faith or sexual orientation - the NHS should provide services for all according to their individual needs, and employment in providing those services should be equally open to all."
