Supporting Black History Month 2024

Accelerating change with anti-racist approaches in the NHS - Wednesday 23 October 2024, 6.30 - 9pm

The BME Leadership Network held its annual Black History Month lecture at the Royal College of Nursing in London. Professor Stephani Hatch shared anti-racist approaches, lessons learned and actionable insights to help dismantle processes that are perpetuating racism. 

BME Leadership Network online member meeting - Thursday 7th November 2024, 12.30pm - 1.30pm via MS Teams

The agenda included:

• A session with Liz Fekete, Director from the Institute of Race Relations, who spoke on ‘Race Riots and Resistance’, putting the events of August into perspective.
• A discussion on NHS leaders’ responses to the riots.
• An opportunity to share your personal experiences and lessons for the future.

Women in Health and Care: Innovating for Impact - Wednesday 11 December 2024 

Bookings are now open for the Health and Care Women Leaders Network’s eighth annual conference on 11 December. Register now to explore work underway within the sector and network to progress gender equality, with a focus on intersectionality and how women and allies can come together to break barriers and drive innovative solutions. 

Black History Month provides an opportunity for leaders to declare that the NHS will not stand for racism going forward. Racism, inequality, injustice within the NHS is not acceptable.

Five actions for board members and senior leaders

• Engage with your BME staff networks and actively listen to the challenges.
• Implement and demonstrate a zero-tolerance policy on racism and bullying.
• Encourage more BME staff to become Freedom to Speak Up guardians.
• Look for disparities within the career development of your staff and work to close gaps through active career management policies.
• Ensure the diversity of your board reflects the diversity of your staff and service users.

The evidence

• The Messenger review (2022) highlighted the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion in leadership. In response, the NHS EDI improvement plan was published which states that “where diversity – across the whole workforce – is underpinned by inclusion, staff engagement, retention, innovation, and productivity improve.”  The NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard data shows a direct link between staff and patient satisfaction: improving staff experience is essential to improving services. Although racism in the NHS is acknowledged, it remains a problem. For example, data shows that in 2023, just 39 per cent of staff from a Black background believed that their trust provides equal opportunities for career progression or promotion.
• The NHS England EDI improvement plan seeks to tackle these issues with high impact actions two and six:
  • High impact two requires NHS organisations to embed fair and inclusive recruitment processes and talent management strategies that target under-representation and lack of diversity.
  • High impact action six requires organisations to create an environment that eliminates the conditions in which bullying, discrimination, harassment and physical violence at work occur. To achieve this, organisations will be required to review data by protected characteristic, including BME and gender, and set reduction targets by March 2024 and implement a plan to improve the staff experience of these groups. 
• The combatting racial discrimination against nurses, midwives and nursing associates resource, published by NHS England, NHS Confederation and the Nursing and Midwifery Council, provides advice on the action you can take if you witness or experience racism. It also supports those in leadership roles to be inclusive leaders.

Good practice

Implementing an anti-racism strategy . Roisin Fallon-Williams, chief executive of Birmingham and Solihull NHS Foundation Trust, shares her reflections on the trust's journey to implement its anti-racism strategy. The strategy involves a series of smaller, manageable steps as part of a continuous improvement approach to cultural change.  

Diversifying NHS leadership. Find out how Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust have made tangible progress in diversifying black and ethnic minority leadership. Eric Priozzoli and Fay Blackwood share how tackling discrimination and providing coaching and mentoring support has led to greater staff satisfaction and increased representation at band 8A and above.  

NHS Race and Health Observatory

The NHS Race and Health Observatory (RHO), which is hosted by the NHS Confederation and supported by NHS England and NHS Improvement, has been set up to investigate the impact of race and ethnicity on people’s health. It works to identify and tackle ethnic inequalities in health and care by facilitating research, making health policy recommendations and enabling long-term transformational change. 

Confronting racism within the NHS. Read a powerful blog from Patricia Miller, chief executive of NHS Dorset Integrated Care Board, who draws parallels with her experiences of Britain in the 1980s. She explores how the NHS can urgently address systemic racism within its services, including recognising racial disparities in patient care and supporting staff who face discrimination.

Healthy people are productive people. Hear a discussion with Professor Kevin Fenton on our latest Health on the Line podcast. He explores public health challenges and how tackling healthcare inequalities is crucial to ensure that communities thrive. 

Improvement podcast with Black Maternity Matters. In the UK, Black mothers are up to four times more likely to die during pregnancy or in the postnatal period than white women. Listen to the latest episode of our Leading Improvement in Health and Care podcast, featuring Black Maternity Matters – a ground-breaking collaboration tackling the inequitable maternity outcomes faced by Black mothers and their babies. 

NHS workforce and patient safety. Read a Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) report which highlights how racism, bias and discrimination at work is preventing NHS temporary workers from speaking up about safety concerns. 

Diversifying the upper levels of the health service. Read about why there is a distinct lack of diversity at higher levels despite the incredible diversity of NHS staff as a whole, What is going wrong?

Our BME Leadership Network is a member-led network dedicated to establishing a truly diverse NHS leadership by strengthening the voice of black and minority ethnic communities. It aims to bring about sustainable change, so the NHS always delivers high quality universal care to all communities, by supporting members to overcome strategic and operational barriers to delivering equality.

In response to feedback from its members, the network has: 

• Launched a Network of Network Leaders, with nearly 90 chairs of NHS staff BME/BAME networks signed up.
• Held a conference Keeping the Promise - Universal Healthcare is an Anti-racist Healthcare which provided a supportive space for BME leaders and allies to have an open and honest conversation on the topic of antiracist leadership.
• Held three leadership development masterclasses designed and delivered exclusively for network members: Equity by Design, Driving high quality and sustainable outcomes and Compassionate and positive cultures.
• Published the Excellence through Equality report highlighting existing anti-racist leadership good practice and examining the evidence base that supports anti-racism as a service improvement tool in the NHS.
• Launched our Anti-racism bulletin which is published four times per year.

The BME Leadership Network has just over 1,000 members. We welcome NHS BME leaders as members and non-BME leaders as supporters. Visit BME Leadership Network for further information and to join.

The Health and Care Women Leaders Network is a free network open to all women working across health and care.  

The network aims to be a strong and influential voice – advocating, championing and supporting all women working across health and care. We focus on women’s health; women’s safety; flexible working; reducing the gender pay gap; empowering women to senior and board-level positions within the health and care sector; and supporting members with their personal and professional development.  
 
There are over 2,500 members, from a range of roles, grades and organisations, including NHS trusts, the ambulance sector and primary care.  
 
We connect through events, masterclasses, tweet chats and campaigns, and share learning through podcasts, blogs, videos and key reports. Find out more about our upcoming annual conference.   

We also run a vibrant Health and Care Network of Women’s Networks, open to chairs and leads of women’s networks from a range of organisations.   

Join us to celebrate our skills and talents, connect with colleagues and challenge gender stereotypes in the workplace.