A major employer

NHS Lothian is a major employer in the region, with nearly 30,000 staff across a huge variety of roles and professions. We are committed to becoming the best possible employer for our diverse workforce. The Human Resources & Organisational Development Strategy (2008-11) sets out the values of the organisation and lists a wide range of commitments to help make these a reality for all staff.

We are making progress but there is much still to do. The rate of disclosure among disabled staff is low at just 0.5%. It is believed that there are many disabled staff who do not feel confident about informing the organisation that they are disabled. There is a strong gender imbalance in the workforce, with men totalling just 21% of staff and concentrated in lower grades and the highest grades.

On first glance ethnicity in the workforce seems appropriate with 4.7% of those staff who declared their ethnic origin being from non-white backgrounds. This overall figure is not likely to be too different to the figure for Lothian as a whole. However the workforce still does not reflect the community that NHS Lothian serves. The predominant non-white population in Lothian is Pakistani, whereas the largest non-white staff groups are African and Indian.

Dignity at Work is a concern for NHS Lothian as we know from the anonymous bi-annual staff survey that disabled employees report comparatively high levels of bullying and harassment. Staff from ethnic minorities also report higher than average levels. See Outcome 6.1 in the action plan for more details about how we will address this issue.

You can find detailed information about our employees in our quarterly workforce reports.

Improving workforce information

In the year to March 2009, 48% of staff had responded to requests for their ethnic origin. There was no data on sexual orientation or religious belief (or non-belief) in the workforce. NHS Lothian will gather more information about diversity in its workforce in the following ways:

• Improving response rates to the anonymous staff survey carried out every two years, by running a promotional campaign in 2010 (see Outcome 6.1 in the action plan).
  
• Raising the profile of disability and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff in the workforce by establishing peer support networks for disabled staff and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff. Through these networks we will promote positive images of diversity in internal and external communications about employment in NHS Lothian (see Outcome 6.3).
  
• Developing the way we record the reasonable adjustments we make for staff through our Occupational Health Service (see Outcome 6.3).
  
• Working with staff side organisations to improve confidence in diversity monitoring across the workforce (see Outcome 6.2).

Making changes

The information we gather will be put to good use and will allow us to develop targeted action plans to address equality, diversity and Human Rights in the workforce. The NHS Lothian Human Resources & Organisational Development Strategy 2008-11 includes commitments to:

• Improve dignity at work and reduce bullying and harassment of staff.
  
• Increase the number of people from diverse backgrounds employed by NHS Lothian, with clear targets (e.g. work and training placements for 50 people with a learning disability).
  
• Increase the number of disabled people in middle and senior management positions by developing the existing Black & Minority Ethnic mentoring scheme to include disabled staff.

You can find out more about the strategy from the equality Consultations and Involvement section. It is included as a commitment in the action plan (see Outcomes 6.1, 6.2, 6.3).

Support for disabled staff

During involvement for this Scheme and the preceding Disability Equality Scheme (December 2009), staff said that they were concerned about how they were supported in the workplace. They wanted more effective support from services like Occupational Health and Employee Relations. This was felt to be particularly important when considering staff performance, capability proceedings, retirement on health grounds or redeployment. The action plan includes commitments to address this (see Outcome 6.3).

Training

Training of staff is an important way to improve knowledge about and attitudes to age, disability, gender, race, religious belief and sexual orientation.

A wide range of training programmes addressing disability equality already exist. These include:

• Equality & diversity awareness training delivered to all new employees (approximately 2,500 every year) as part of the corporate induction programme.
• A new disability equality training course has been developed which focuses on promotion of the social model of disability.
  
• Training in specific disability issues for certain groups of staff, e.g. mental health, dementia.
  
• Training in equal opportunities in recruitment and selection for managers, including recruiting disabled staff.
• Refresher training in disability equality as part of the Knowledge & Skills Framework that all staff, with the exception of doctors and some managers, must complete.

People involved in developing the Scheme suggested that NHS Lothian develop its approach to training on equality and Human Rights issues. The training courses that NHS Lothian already delivers should contain more references to equality and Human Rights. Where necessary new courses should be developed specifically relating to equality and Human Rights issues. This should be called an equality training framework.

The equality training framework will include actions to develop existing equality training, while also developing mainstream training programmes so that they include equality elements. This is one of the actions in the action plan in this Scheme (see Outcome 3.1).

Partnership with trade unions

NHS Lothian is fortunate to have excellent relationships with trade unions. The Lothian Partnership Forum, and the local Forums that support it, oversees and provides help with workforce-related developments.

The Partnership also oversees work to improve equality and diversity in the workforce. This Scheme includes actions to support the development taking place within unions so that they can continue to provide support to employees of al backgrounds and act as advocates for equality in the workplace. See Outcome 6.1 for more details.