ADDRESSING inequalities and under-representation among our local workforce and population is one of the Academy’s leading priorities.

Evidence shows a disproportionate number of those who have died from COVID-19 are from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds.

This means the pandemic has shone a spotlight on the disparity of experience and opportunity between white and BME people.

We know that many BME health and care staff are having worse experiences in the workplace than their white colleagues because of discriminatory systems and processes.

As an Academy we also wish to challenge stereotypes and any unconscious bias towards minority groups that may occur during the recruitment stage.

Health providers in our region are rightly expected to show progress against a number of indicators of workforce equality, including a specific indicator to address the low numbers of black and minority ethnic board members across system organisations.

Through the use of good quality data, and multi-channel communications and engagement, we will work to help our integrated partners change the deep rooted cultures of race inequality in the system, learn more about the importance of equity and to build capacity and capability to work with race.

It’s our mission to ensure key policies have race equality built into their core, so they become everyday business.

The Academy’s data dashboard wholeheartedly supports the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and its reporting requirements in terms of access to data and indicator outputs.

Using aggregation of BHRUT, NELFT, independent social care, local authorities (all three BHR boroughs) and primary care into a single consolidated view of all demographic workforce data from across the BHR system, the dashboard facilitates a single storeroom of rich data to support the WRES, equality and diversity workstreams.

Using the methodology and learning from the Academy can help partners to inform relevant work streams within their programmes, this includes recruitment pipelines, system-wide career pathways, leadership capability and workforce planning.

The methodology may also include a data review against some workforce indicators, the development of action plans to close the gaps in workplace experience between white and minority ethnic staff, and to improve minority ethnic representation at the senior level of the organisation.

The dashboard can drill into the areas the WRES is focused on in terms of ethnicity: previous snapshots and current up to the latest quarter, Afc Pay Bands; Band 1 up to VSM; and staff progression – via disparity ratios.

From a summary perspective, compared to pan London March 2021 (48.11%), BHR’s BME workforce was higher (53.2%) and we can currently see the latest figures from June 2022 have also increased slightly since then (53.7%).

Going forward, the dashboard will support further WRES indicators with the aim to reduce the burden on multiple organisations having to collate and submit returns by supporting a holistic system picture and single return.

As a system we acknowledge there is so much more to do and the Academy can be a key component in enforcing positive change for BME communities.