Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to providing outstanding care and we will do this by working with and involving our patients, partners and stakeholders to tackle health inequality in Walsall.

Equally, we are committed to making sure our workforce, many of whom live in Walsall, live our values at work and can contribute to our comprehensive improvement programme to achieve our vision of providing an inclusive healthcare service provider for the benefit of our staff and patients. Our aim is to create an inclusive culture, by celebrating the diversity of our workforce and borough, by learning from best practice and by identifying and taking positive action to reduce any evident inequality. We want Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust to be recommended as a place to work and recommended as a place to be treated.

Walsall Healthcare Trust’s aim is to ensure the diverse needs of our patients, partners, communities, service users and staff are provided for and that we improve patient involvement and experience when using our services and improve the reputation of the Trust as a place to work for staff during their employment with the Trust.

The Trust Board is committed to further improve our workforce performance and culture and have signed up to this pledge:

“We, your Trust Board, pledge to demonstrate through our actions that we listen and support people.
We will ensure the organisation treats people equally, fairly and inclusively, with zero tolerance of bullying. We uphold and role model the Trust values chosen by you”.

We will use the governance and accountability frameworks in place within the Trust to measure and evaluate our performance on the action plan being developed to support our strategy.

This will take place through the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group which is a multi-disciplinary staff group including EDI champions, patient experience lead,
staff side representatives, Executive lead and is chaired by a Non-Executive Director of the Trust Board. The People and Organisational Development Committee which is a sub-committee of the Trust Board will take oversight and review progress on a regular basis in order to provide assurance to the Trust Board.

Our strategy provides an initial framework to help us progress this ambition; it is a dynamic and iterative document that will be continuously reviewed to align with the Trust’s improvement programme. The next step is to work with stakeholders to co-create the detailed action plan that will support the delivery of EDI outcomes.

Purpose

Our inclusion strategy describes our vision and direction when implementing equality and diversity and inclusion within our Trust both for our service users and workforce. The strategy sets out our aim and objectives and key priorities for the next two years (2021-22) this will be based on an iterative approach and the strategy will be reviewed on a regular basis.

Walsall is a diverse borough; however, there are significant areas of deprivation and differentials in health outcomes across the borough. The 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation now ranks Walsall as the 25th most deprived English local authority (out of 317), placing Walsall within the most deprived 10% of districts in the country (33rd in 2015, 30th in 2010 and 45th in 2007).

Within our workforce there are differentials in workplace experience and career outcomes. This strategy is part of the Trust’s improvement ambition and will be refined as we build the programme, the development of the action plan will be an iterative process as we learn from others and design and develop outcomes with stakeholders.

The links below show a range of data regarding staff in post, click on relevant years to find out more.