Music is such a wonderful vehicle for many reasons. As well as the benefits of singing together music provides a backdrop for many of our lives. I certainly have a soundtrack that sits behind my life and it delivers a kaleidoscope of colour, reminding me of both situations and feelings past and present. Music also offers an incredible way to tell stories again pricking our emotions in a way that no other vehicle can. Many of my favourite songs and pieces of music tell stories – story telling, like music, is part of our DNA. Those stories intertwined with the music, at times, provoke positive action and will stay in our memories – unleashed again when we hear that music.
Those first 2 paragraphs probably feel a bit random in a blog from me (although those that know me reasonably well won’t be surprised at all!) but I hope they provide a worthy platform for me to talk about Black History Month. I love many things about Black History Month – the celebration, the education, the recognition. Black history is part of all of our history but we need to make time to celebrate it because too often it is not recognised as part of our wider history. If we take music for a moment, practically everything we consider in terms of popular music has roots in black history and we should be incredibly grateful for that history as it has given us the richness and diversity we have today (this is a really interesting blog ‘How Black People Created Every Music Genre in America’ Vince Dixon Portfolio).
At Combined we have some lovely celebrations and education taking place. I’m really sorry that I’ll miss the event on 20 October at the Bridge Centre being led by our ENRICH Staff Network (Equality Network for Race Inclusion and Cultural Heritage) where speakers include Dame Elizabeth Anionwu and our very own Chief Executive Dr Buki Adeyemo with the Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent also attending for part of the proceedings. They will be telling their stories and helping us to have a better understanding.
We also had the opportunity to hear from the amazing Baroness Floella Benjamin via Teams on 30 October 2023. Having heard Floella speak before, the session was a real treat. Floella went through her life story and shared her learning. She told her story and also used the power of music to help us take that story to our hearts. Like many of us, she was part of my childhood, and to hear about the experiences she was having whilst providing many of us with such a fabulous role-model is eye-opening.
I’m not sure though why it was “eye-opening” for me (and possibly many of the people who heard her speak). We have not made anywhere near the progress we should have in providing a fair, just and equitable society, which is way beyond disappointing. In fact, I feel somewhat ashamed as to where we are still for people in our society, in our services and colleagues we work with and rely on. I rightly feel the discomfort as a heterosexual, male, cis-gendered and of white heritage with the privileges I possess. I know the notion of privilege is seen as controversial by some in our society but please watch the great John Amaechi speak on What is white privilege? before dismissing it. Society seems to get more and more polarised but what is clear is that we still do not have anywhere near a level playing field. This article in The Guardian provides a chilling commentary quoting “Racism and Ethnic Inequality in a Time of Crisis” outlining that more than a third of people from ethnic and religious minorities have experienced some form of racist assault; that people with ethnically diverse heritage suffer significant institutional Racism in employment, education, from the police and in seeking housing; and nearly a third of people from ethnic and religious minority groups reported racial discrimination in education and employment. This pattern is mirrored in senior levels within organisations too. A recent report in the Financial Times reported a significant drop in the cultural diversity of appointees as well as a drop in female appointees.
These are powerful stories and I would love to say they did not exist within the NHS but whilst we have seen some improvements we still have significant challenges and we let down our colleagues in many instances. This video produced by two colleagues at Keele School of Medicine – Alysha Harun and Hashvi Shah – is powerful and a difficult watch. It provides the stories of doctors, our colleagues, working in teams like ours across the NHS. It’s an awful experience for them. Equally challenging are the comments from others working in health beneath it. As I said earlier, I feel ashamed to be in an environment where those things are happening – and I strongly believe that the vast majority of colleagues working in Combined would be ashamed to think that this was happening to their colleagues and friends too – but they are.
We have made some great strides at Combined in raising awareness and taking positive action in relation to inclusivity. However, our last staff survey data shows us that colleagues still report harassment, bullying or abuse from patients is nearly 50% higher if you have a culturally diverse heritage than if you are white and it’s well over double when it comes to receiving harassment, bullying or abuse from other staff, from colleagues (nearly 37% as opposed to 16%). In respect to our workforce profile our overall workforce consists of nearly 10% of people with an ethnically diverse heritage but you are three times more likely to be an 8a-8b manager in Combined if you’re white. We still have issues at Combined like the rest of the NHS.
Diversity brings richness to our world. We are all different. Different heritage, ideals, values, education, talents, likes and dislikes. Like where we started this blog with the choir, we are all different and working together brings such reward. Let’s put aside the ethic, legal and moral obligations of preventing discrimination for a second, in teams diversity brings greater success especially when considering problem solving, innovation, strategy and difficult challenges. Being inclusive and enabling people to thrive and give of their best is essential to this organisation and in us being able to deliver the best possible services to our diverse population. Being inclusive – welcoming everyone and embracing difference – has to be the bedrock of our culture.
The great Roger Kline has summarised beautifully and far more powerfully than I ever could why inclusion and anti-discriminatory practices matter in a fabulous blog a couple of years ago.
He concludes:
- It is unethical
- It wastes talent
- It undermines patient care
- It may prompt blame not learning
- It impedes effective team work
- Discrimination impacts adversely on staff well-being
- Diverse teams are better teams
- Performance is adversely affected in teams that are not diverse and inclusive
- Discrimination impedes service improvement
- Discrimination is unlawful
So, where do we go from here? Here are the ways I want us to collectively take this forward to help make our Trust as inclusive and supportive as possible.
Taking Personal Responsibility
- I want to know about every incident of racism (and homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, disability discrimination) in our Trust from you, our staff, and will ensure all are followed up
- We have so many allies across the Trust. I want all of us, as allies, to take responsibility for calling out behaviours that are clearly there and making this a great place to work.
- Linked to the evidence as to what works and makes a difference I will have a conversation with all recruitment panel chairs of posts 8a and above for them to explain why they did not appoint a candidate with a culturally diverse heritage. I want people to be very clear in their thinking and be able to make justifiable decisions and I want to build a picture of what is causing us not to appoint people. I certainly don’t want panels to feel pressured to appoint someone who is not right – but to perhaps challenge their own thought processes, be clear what support that candidate needs and ensure they have great, constructive feedback and a development plan to help them for next time.
- I want all staff with a passion to join our Staff Network groups. CAN – Combined Ability Network; ENRICH – Equality Network for Race Inclusion and Cultural Heritage; and Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans+ (LGBT+) Network. More info can be found on our CAT staff intranet pages.
- Angela Davies said “It is not sufficient to not to be racist, you have to be anti-racist” – I want us ALL to sign up to this pledge
Board/Trust Wide Responsibilities
- We will take ownership at Board level – as a Board we have committed to be representative of the population we serve at all levels by 2028/29 – that is to be inclusive of everyone’s background – gender, disability, sexual orientation, trans+ – all backgrounds. But we have to take action to stop this inequality and injustice.
- We are recruiting two new Non-Executive Directors. We will strongly focus on Diversity at the Board and want one of the roles to have a strong focus on Diversity and Inclusion.
Information Driven
- We have created a dashboard for each Directorate to ensure we shine a light on improvement and we’ll keep refining and improving these
- We will publish statistics every 6 months across the organisation to show how we are doing
- We’ll share stories of lived experience of our people to inform and check progress. This will be received by Board, Divisions and recruiting managers
- We’ll also ensure data forms part of our Performance Management approach within Directorates.
Education and improvement
- We have put in place a number of programmes that will help us to do better. We have signed up to and are delivering against the Race Equality Code (the-race-code-v2-dec2021.pdf (nhsproviders.org)). We have plans related to our Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) data which we are monitoring through Inclusion Council
- As part of this we are implementing ‘No More Tick Boxes’ (NHSE-Recruitment-Research-Document-FINAL-2.2.pdf (england.nhs.uk)) this will include:
- We will enhance our education to our staff demonstrating the value of diversity and inclusion in teams and services – showing the positive benefits to all
- Recruiting managers will all have been through appropriate training including information and ‘Lived Experience’ of our people at Combined
- We’ll ensure there are stretch opportunities for all but in a transparent way and using a positive action approach to address some of the inherent bias
I’m incredibly proud to be back at Combined and I know we have amazing people working in this Trust. Returning to the original theme of music and the choir, we have many differences and voices but our overall aim is to deliver for our communities, our patients and our colleagues. I think we can make this an even better place to work and to be if we can improve through kindness, compassion and intent the experience for us all. Stories are key to this and ensuring we understand each other and our potential impact is really important – I know we come to work to want to do a good job – all of us. Creating the best environment to make that happen is something we need to continue to strive for. To quote the legendary musician and song writer that is Bob Marley – “The day you stop racing is the day you win the race.”
