Our latest NHS Workforce Race and Disability Equality Standard data shows our hospitals are becoming more inclusive places to work.

From making adjustments for our disabled colleagues to reducing incidents of bullying and harassment towards our BME staff, we’re heading in the right direction.

We’ve improved in six of the eight disability equality indicators, including a 7% drop in the number of disabled staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse at work, going from 39% in 2022 to 32% in 2023.

There was also a jump of over 10% in disabled staff reporting harassment; with more colleagues empowered to report poor treatment, we’re better equipped to tackle it.

Over the last three years, more of our staff have said we’ve made adequate adjustments to enable them to carry out their work, rising from 61% in 2021 to 66% in 2023.

We’ve also seen improvements in several of the race equality standard indicators, including a 9% decrease in the number of BME staff experiencing abuse at work, dropping from 36% in 2022 to 27% in 2023.

We’re tackling violence against our staff with the No Excuse, No Abuse campaign, which launched in February this year.

And we’ve closed the gap between the experiences of BME staff and their white colleagues in relation to abuse; in 2022, 3% more BME staff were abused at work than white (36% compared to 33% of white staff). In 2023, this was 28% of BME staff compared to 29% for white staff).

Janine La Rosa, our Chief People Officer, said:

It’s really encouraging that we are taking steps in the right direction to making our hospitals more equitable places to work for our staff.

There is still lots of work to do to improve the experience of BME staff, and those with a disability or long-term condition, which will be guided by the action plans we have in place.

Our actions plans include: making our recruitment processes more inclusive; providing the right support to help BME colleagues and those with a disability reach more senior roles including coaching and sponsorship; reviewing our disciplinary procedures to ensure they are fair; and having open and honest conversations, with the support of our staff networks.

You can find our actions plans on our equality and diversity page.