Our leaders are actively working to embed equality, diversity and inclusion in their work and in their teams. Actions to deliver equality are more significant and easier to understand when they are linked with key themes. Analysis led by the EDI team in collaboration with teams, networks and leads across the organisation has consistently highlighted seven key workforce themes.
- Active leadership commitment: ensuring our Board and senior leaders continue to role model inclusive leadership behaviours and embed EDI across the ICB.
- Being an inclusive employer: developing processes which ensure parity of access, fair outcomes and reflect our diverse population at all levels.
- Progressing careers and talent development: supporting our diverse talent on their career pathways.
- Tackling bullying and harassment: understanding and addressing the experiences faced by minoritised staff.
- Building staff support, health, and wellbeing: continuing to put in place measures which promote workforce health and wellbeing. Experiences of discrimination are bad for health and wellbeing. Feeling good in yourself means you feel good in your health.
- Service planning and engagement: ensuring our workforce understand the needs of our population, and strengthening mechanisms to improve access, experience and outcomes in partnership with our people and communities.
- Training, learning and development: building capacity and competency in all areas of EDI.
Our strategy is to base a roadmap of action around these seven key themes.
The roadmap will consist of new and pre-existing commitments, gathered from multiple sources and spanning all protected characteristics.
Emphasis will be put on specific protected characteristics where targeted action is identified as required.
Objectives of our strategy
Our EDI strategy will deliver our mission to build a fair and inclusive culture for the workforce at the heart of health planning in south east London, by understanding and meeting the needs of our diverse workforce.
When the needs of our workforce are met, our teams become better equipped to fulfil our core purpose of improving access, experience and outcomes for our patients and populations with protected characteristics.
Through our strategy, our objectives are to:
- Make our people aware of the discrimination that exists, the harm it can do and how we can counteract it (see Causes of discrimination).
- Further develop our culture, which promotes inclusivity, celebrates diversity and is actively anti-discriminatory.
- Directly support the ICB to live its national and local values set out in the NHS People Promise and SEL ICB’s organisational values (see below).
- Continue to create positive change that can be felt by our workforce and will be echoed by our people and communities through the decisions we make and the healthcare services we plan and commission.
How we demonstrate our values, specifically related to our EDI strategy
Our organisational values are to be collaborative, caring, inclusive and innovative. Our strategy is based on us embedding these values by:
- creating a positive working environment
- being mindful of the impact of our words and actions on others
- listening actively to others
- being kind and respectful of all cultures and beliefs
- developing an understanding of others’ needs and requirements
- being considerate of others’ views and opinions
- curiously engaging with different cultures and beliefs
- being understanding and non-judgemental of others
- continuing to learn by listening to new ideas
Read the sections of the strategy below
