Workforce race equality standard (WRES) annual report 2023

Contents

1. Executive summary
2. Background
3. WRES in 2022 and 2023
4. Consultation
5. Conclusion
6. Recommendations
7. WRES data analysis

Executive summary

This report provides an overview of the work required for Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust (RDaSH) to meet its contractual requirements of the workforce race equality standard (WRES) which we are required to submit by 31 August 2023.

The WRES explores 9 metrics by gathering data from the Electronic Staff Records (ESR) system, recruitment, disciplinary and training data sets and the national staff survey as of 31 March 2023.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the 2023 scores for RDaSH for all metrics over the past three years.

The equality, diversity and inclusion workstream and the REACH Network will co-produce an action plan that addresses the metrics which require improvement which will be presented to the Executive Management team (EMT) and the board of directors for approval and support for implementation.

Comparison of the 2022 and 2023 data has highlighted areas of improvement and likewise deterioration with the staff survey responses with a particular emphasis on bullying and harassment that will need to be acted on across all areas of the trust.

Further commitment will be needed at senior level to make certain that support is available to ensure that we are able to make the changes that we need to improve the experience of work for black and minority ethnic (BME) colleagues across the employee life cycle.

Background

There is a mandatory requirement for the organisation to assess their performance against the workforce race equality standard (WRES). Each organisation must undertake this evaluation against 9 metrics on an annual basis on 31 March and following the analysis of performance, develop and publish action plans.

The WRES has been designed to improve the representation and experience of black and minority ethnic (BME) colleagues from all levels of the organisation but particularly within senior management.

The Equality Act and the public sector equality duty provides us with a legislative framework to ensure we do not treat people with a protected characteristic less favourably than those without and ensure we put in place conditions to address this imbalance.

The data illustrates that our BME workforce continues to be moderately impacted, which has an impact on the talent and resources of existing colleagues being under-utilized. This is a waste of precious talent and organisational resources and perpetuates inequalities throughout the individual’s work and life experience. The trust has been pro-active in response to its duty under the Equality Act 2010 and for colleague’s experience to match the ethos of the organisation although we still have a long way to go to close the gap.

Discrimination has emotional cost to the individual impacting work, home and potentially career progression. The discrimination also puts the organisation under strain as absent colleagues create additional strain on colleagues and agency costs. The employee may make a case against the organisation which could cost the organisation financially and with reputation.

The quality-of-care argument is well presented by Professor Michael West in demonstrating that an organisation that is truly inclusive improves outcomes on patient quality of care and that diverse teams drive innovations.

Focusing on race equality will enable RDaSH to demonstrate inclusivity and compassion by ensuring that its workforce is supported and developed. The WRES supports our trust’s vision of “leading the way with care”, developing the right values and culture to show compassion in our behaviour.

The EMT is asked to note progress to date, approve the WRES annual report and continue to give the support to this so that the trust can move at pace to make these systemic and sustainable changes.

Workforce race equality standard (WRES) in 2022 and 2023

Metric 1, percentage of BME colleagues in the workforce broken down by agenda for change band

Please note, for all metrics we have highlighted both positive and negative trends that are statistically significant plus or minus 0.3%, anything below 0.3% is considered static, denoted by positive, negative, and static respectively.

• There has been an overall improvement of BME representation across the trust a significant increase in BME representation in both non-clinical and clinical bands 5 to 7 which is probably attributed to the success of the international nurse recruitment programme and would suggest that the talent management including the succession planning process, are having the desired impact. However, there are notable decreases in clinical bands 8 to 9 and VSM and no change to non-clinical VSM over the last 3 years.

Metric 2

• As a reminder, metrics 2, 3 and 4 relate to recruitment, formal disciplinary action, and training which all consider the likelihood for BME colleagues and white colleagues in such situations where any score above 1.25 is noted as significant and in practice adversely impacts our BME colleagues. Any score below 0.8 shows an adverse impact on white colleagues.

• This metric continues to improve with a greater number of BME candidates being appointed from shortlisting. Further work is being undertaken as part of the recent NHSEI EDI priorities in reviewing the recruitment process which will allow us to understand at which stage we need to target further initiatives.

Metric 3

• We have seen a positive decrease in the relative likelihood of BME colleagues entering the formal disciplinary process since 2021 to 2023. It is hoped that with the implementation of the just restorative and learning culture that this will continue to improve.
• Culture change takes time and there now needs to be an even greater emphasis of addressing these systemic issues through the WRES action plan.

Metric 4

• This is an area where there is little evidence of practice having a disproportionate impact on BME or white colleagues in how they access mandatory training.

Metrics 5 to 8 come from the staff survey which are reported on the annual dataset each year 31 March, for these metrics it must be noted that the data is collected from the previous year 2022.

Metric 5

• There is a slight increase for our BME colleagues experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or the public in the past 12 months reflected in the staff survey results, however, we are aware of an increasing number of incidents taking place that are being reported via the IRI system and we expect to see this figure increase significantly in the 2023 staff survey results.
• The head of EDI is leading on an anti-racism framework to implement in the trust which will give our colleagues and managers a comprehensive guide on how to deal with unacceptable or unwanted behaviour.

Metric 6

• Although the trend is positive and a further improvement has been seen for both BME and white colleagues 19.4% is still relatively high and further intensive work needs to be carried out in this area.
• Further work will be progressed in this area with the anti-racism alliance framework.

Metric 7

Page last reviewed: December 16, 2024
Next review due: December 16, 2025

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