NHS Employers holds 7th Equality Diversity and Human Rights Week 2018

NHS Employers this week held its 7th week on equality and diversity, which ended with a summit on disability. From 14 May to 18 May 2018, health and social care organisations across England celebrated Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week, #EQW2018, with over a hundred workshops, activities, events and awareness training sessions. We are told that the week finished with NHS Employers' 3rd Disability Summit.  Co-ordinated by NHS Employers, #EQW2018 is a national platform for organisations to highlight their work to create a fairer, more inclusive NHS for patients and staff.

The week's theme "Diverse, Inclusive, Together," has been chosen to reflect the move across the health and social care sector towards collaboration and integration, as underlined by NHS England's 5 Year Forward View.  Participating trusts were given access to a toolkit and resources available on the website of NHS Employers. Barts Health, the second largest NHS trust in the UK was main partner of the Disability Summit and also took part in #EQW2018.

During the week, the London based trust's Inclusion team were at each of the Hospital sites with information made available to staff on channels for raising concerns, and how to get involved with the staff diversity network subgroups. At the Disability Summit, held at the Tower Hotel London, delegates heard the latest thinking of national disability policy initiatives.

1 of the event speakers was Jane Hatton, who delivered a speech entitled:- "A dozen brilliant reasons to employ disabled people."  Disabled herself, Hatton is the founder of Evenbreak, an award winning social enterprise run by and for disabled people. "I'm delighted to have spoken at the Disability Summit this year... So often, when talking about 'diversity and inclusion', people just focus on race and gender and occasionally give a nod to LGBTQ+. Disability often seems the poor relation. This is quite odd, when you think it's not just about recruiting disabled people, but about retaining people as well. 2% of people of working age acquire a disability every year, so this is an issue for all organisations whether they like it or not. For the NHS, of course, attracting, retaining and nurturing disabled staff is of specific importance. With skills shortages, and the need to attract talented people into the sector, tapping into a wider talent pool is essential." said Hatton.

NHS Employers and NHS England are currently working across the system on finalising the proposed introduction of the workforce disability equality standard (WDES) in March 2019. The standard will go some way towards helping employers meet the ambition of the NHS and social care sector laid out in both the:- '5 Year Forward View' and the Government's ambitions to halve the current employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people.

In 2017 the NHS Employers worked closely with the Department for Work and Pensions and NHS England to encourage trusts to migrate across to the new Disability Confident standard. The Disability Confident scheme supports employers to make the most of the talents that disabled people can bring to the workplace.  Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said:- "Once again, through the vehicle of Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week, we have seen the breadth and variety of commitment to the principles of fairness, equity and inclusion from NHS leaders and teams across England. This has manifested itself in hundreds of local and regional events; ranging from full scale conferences down to information stalls in staff restaurants; all designed to give information, encourage learning and improve tolerance. But these events, and some of the associated social media channels, have rightly expressed frustration at the lack of progress in too many areas. The challenge now for NHS leaders is to show the depth of their commitment and take sustained action to improve the experience of their both staff and patients. Since the first NHS Employers Disability Summit three years ago, the issues surrounding the employment rates and experiences of people with disabilities, including those with learning disabilities, are increasingly being discussed by policy makers and employers. This includes the Government's announcement, in November 2017, to employ a million more disabled people over the next 10 years."

A diverse NHS, in numbers:-

► 77% - of the NHS workforce is made up of women, while women comprise 47% of England's working population.

► 47% - of very senior manager roles in the NHS are held by women.

► 77% - of the NHS workforce is white, 5% black or black British, and 9% is Asian or Asian British. England's overall working population is 86% white, 3% black or black British, and 7% Asian British.

► 43 years is the average age of an NHS employee, male and female.

Bid to stop dumping by student landlords in Liverpool

WORK is underway to prevent dumping in alleyways by private landlords when thousands of students leave Liverpool at the end of the academic year.  The City Council has written to 550 landlords across Greenbank ward, which has an estimated 3,500 students who occupy nearly ½ of the properties in some areas of the ward, offering them a discounted house clearance service through Bulky Bobs, the social enterprise and registered charity which collects and recycles larger items. It is in a bid to prevent tonnes of furniture, food, crockery, bedding and appliances being simply thrown out as waste as landlords empty properties in preparation for new student tenants moving in. In previous years the Council has had to foot the bill for picking up the items which blight passageways and are a fire hazard due to the risk of arson.

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said:- "Students make a massively positive contribution to life in our City, but sadly some of their landlords are not as responsible.  Despite running a private and often extremely profitable business off the back of students, they are too often happy to abdicate their duties and expect others to collect household goods which blight our communities. Fortunately, thanks to our Landlord Licensing scheme, we now know who they are and are in a position to remind them of their rights and responsibilities and take action if they don't abide by the rules. It is everyone's collective responsibility to reuse and recycle where possible and reduce the amount of waste thrown away."

Greenbank ward Councillor Laura Robertson Collins said:- "Landlords who profit from student tenants are responsible for clearing up behind them and will be held to account for this. Much of the apparent 'waste' that is thrown out of these houses, such as crockery and kitchen equipment, is perfectly serviceable and could be re-used by the next tenants.  We have to challenge the amount of waste that is generated and how it is managed."

Bulky Bob's Manager, Claire Donovan, said:- "As well as collecting bulky household waste for Liverpool City Council for the past 18 years, we also offer a full commercial furniture collection and office recycling service. So we were delighted to partner with the local authority to help encourage landlords to responsibly dispose of unwanted items by offering a discounted rate. Bulky Bob's is a social enterprise and registered charity and we work hard to help local families in need by giving away free furniture. We hope that this project will not only help to help to reduce fly tipping, but it could also be a valuable source of preloved furniture that we can then give away to local people in crisis."

Leave Liverpool Tidy, a scheme run by Liverpool Guild of Students, is distributing bags around the Garmoyle Road/Gainsborough Road areas for students to leave unwanted items in which will be reused and recycled. In 2017 over 10 tonnes of items were redistributed through the project. Maggy Read, who co-ordinates the Dales Residents Group in the L15 area of Greenbank Ward, said:- "Every summer after the students have left our area is blighted with heaps of waste in front yards and alleys, cleared from student houses by landlords' cleaners and builders. Residents then have to spend three months of each year reporting this fire risk to the authorities, in 2017, we had three instances of arson when landlord rubbish and builders' materials were set alight, and we were lucky that no-one was seriously injured. We are delighted to hear that a targeted attempt to prevent this problem is being made by the Council and its partners."

The work is part of a wider crackdown on environmental crime which has seen a doubling in the number of staff tackling fly tipping and cleaning alleyways, with four new teams working seven days a week and thousands of people fined for dropping litter.