On the evening of my first day back from holiday on 20 June, I am planning to attend the NHS Windrush celebration event at BMA House.   I am expecting to be full of the post holiday feel good factor and it is an event that is going to be too good to miss. The reception comes at the end of the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) conference which will mark one year since the launch of the WRES in 2015, which was designed to address poor career progression, bullying and harassment that were evident in the NHS based on the data reported by staff and patients.  

It is of course well documented that the NHS has always, from its beginnings in July 1948 (a short time after the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury docks on 22 June 1948), relied on its black and minority ethnic (BME) staff. People from the Commonwealth had been invited to post-war Britain to help to rebuild the infrastructure so damaged by the Second World War, and so this first group of people arrived at a key time, when it was most needed.

Today (2 June 2016), NHS England has published its 2015 analysis of the WRES for NHS trusts. The findings do not make for good reading; there are still higher levels of BME staff reporting the experience of abuse, bullying and harassment from patients, relatives and carers as well as from members of the public.  There are also reports of blocked career progression and greater discrimination towards BME staff compared to their white counterparts.  

However, it is not all bad news. The learning from the introduction of the WRES is being taken on board, with new initiatives being embedded to implement the standard and to simplify data collection in future. A range of guidance and support materials that providers can make use of are available, and trusts are being encouraged to share and spread good practice.

NHS Providers, the trade association representing 95% of the provider sector has played its part in the latter. Published back in 2014 to coincide with the introduction of the WRES for 2015-16, our report Leading by example: the race equality opportunity for NHS providers set out the three things that we believe are key to addressing the race equality opportunity: the business case for change, the importance of board level leadership, and effective national support.  Fundamental to this in the context of leadership is ensuring that diversity is “everbody’s business”, and not simply the responsibility of diversity champions, who themselves are not always board members or at the top of organisations.  We also included nine case studies in the report from members that are delivering good practice through initiatives such as increasing board diversity, connecting with their wider communities, and building a discrimination-free working environment.

The WRES report highlights “lessons learned” and changes that will be made to the 2016 WRES in light of some the issues and caveats that are set out in the report alongside the findings. Of particular importance is that progress on the WRES has from 1 April 2016 formed part of the criteria for the “well led” domain of the Care Quality Commission inspection programme. “Specialist advisors” will be recruited by the CQC to join inspection teams, and existing inspectors will receive WRES training and support.

Fundamental to this in the context of leadership is ensuring that diversity is “everbody’s business”, and not simply the responsibility of diversity champions, who themselves are not always board members or at the top of organisations.

Our 2014 report highlighted that the introduction of the WRES is an opportunity to look at equality and diversity across the board, to allow all NHS staff that experience unfair treatment and discrimination to voice those concerns and have them recorded. This is ultimately crucial to ensuring high quality care for patients and users of services, and for ensuring that the NHS, as the world’s biggest employer, is able to be a beacon for fair and equal treatment of the people that work so hard at every level.

Last year’s NHS Windrush celebration was a huge success, with reflections from retired staff that joined the NHS at or near its start. And looking at the build up to this year’s event, I anticipate an opportunity to reflect on the learning of the past year, and an opportunity to share what is going well.  If we are genuinely going to take the opportunity offered by the WRES and the Equality and Diversity Council and move towards a culture shift, then it means learning the hard lessons from the past, having the inevitable difficult conversations and then moving forward.  We owe that to all of our diverse NHS staff, past, present and future.