University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) opposes all forms of racism. At UHMBT we believe we must actively tackle racism.
Racism is an assault addressed to people, which causes pain and trauma across communities and generations. We know that racism exists across society, and we have a duty to protect our staff, patients and our communities.
Racism goes beyond conscious or open hostility towards individuals or communities because of their culture, colour, nationality, race, or ethnic background. Racism can be subtle and unconscious. We will not accept racism in any form.
Anti-racism goes beyond thinking that racial prejudice is wrong. We understand that racism is systemic across all structures of society. To truly dismantling racism we need all to actively call out every instance of racism, both structural and individual.
We acknowledge the importance of the collective role that we all play to tackle racism.
Anti-racism at UHMBT means standing in solidarity with all persons belonging to the ethnic minority groups, this includes our very-unique multi-cultural community that evolved from and around our Internationally Educated colleagues, considering the various aspects of cross-cultural competencies associated with all people of colour. We are committed to providing a workplace where everyone is safe and protected from the harm caused by racism and feel a truly meaningful sense of belonging. Our chief aim is to amplify the voices of ethnic minority colleagues and to fighting with them as Allys from the wider groups. To implement this, we are acknowledging and learning from our oversights and missteps without excuses. We will do this by adopting an explicit anti-racist approach.
By adopting an anti-racism approach, we are consciously structuring our activities to reflect our Trust values and actions to address our systemic barriers to race equality. This requires solidarity, bravery and honesty in recognising that there remains much to do, and we must work collectively to listen to experiences and to tackle these inequalities.
As an anti-racist organisation, we will take the following steps:
We acknowledge and understand the history and traumatic effect of racism and discrimination, both within our organisational community and in the wider community that we serve. This includes recognising and addressing any past or current practices that contribute to systemic racism.
We’ve held a full review for plenty of the policies at UHMBT, under a thorough lens of Equality Impact Assessment (EAI), putting race at the core of the assessment. We accept that to do this, with meaning we must question our own roles and biases in continuing racial inequality within the culture of our organisation and our communities.
We worked and will continue to work on creating a diverse and equitable workplace culture, where everyone feels valued and supported, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or background.
This involves:
- Examining the hiring and promotion practices through our Fair Inclusive Recruitment and Retention (FAIRR) group. This involves defining a set of actions for fair practices; one of which, is preparing a full cohort of trained Inclusive Recruitment Ambassadors (IRA) to attend diverse recruitment panels and to interrupt all sorts of biases and unfairness during the recruitment process.
- We provide several safe spaces for open and honest conversations about race and racism, either on a one-to-one basis or through the various groups and programme, like the International Morning Café space.
We will continue to strengthen the voice of our staff networks, enabling staff groups to influence strategy and actions. BAME staff network co-chairs are involved in our IDSG (Inclusion and Diversity Steering Group) and in our Culture and Inclusion Board to support and provide feedback on our plans and actions related to our Ethnic Minority community.
We continue to address any areas of under-representation across our workforce. There will be a particular attention on improving diversity within senior and management roles across the Trust, with a focus on our medical, nurses and midwifery workforce,
where we acknowledge existing gaps in career progressions. We accomplished the first phase of the nurses’ leadership programme, and we will continue this development through the 2nd phase the G2E (Getting to Equality) programme.
Colleagues lived experiences, and perspectives of racialised communities is an important element of our evidence-based approach towards race equity. This an important element in our decision-making processes and organisational goals.
We actively seek out and listen to the concerns and needs of racialised communities. We also work to incorporate their feedback and insights. Whilst seeking to tackle racism through an intersectional lens, exploring how it interacts with other complex inequalities such as gender, disability, and sexuality.
We will use our organisation's resources and platform to advocate for practices that promote racial equity and justice, both within our professions and in society at large.
This will include:
- using our communication team and social media platforms and other communication channels to raise awareness and promote change related to widely variant topics tackling race and faith outlines.
- participating in projects on the Integrated Care Board level, like ongoing joint work on the cultural awareness training.
- working with other organisations and Trusts to advance shared goals, seeking peers’ experiences and advice.
We will establish an Anti-racism Hub to operationalise and embed an anti-racist culture. Even with a clear organisational commitment, progress on racial equity can be weakened if individuals within the organisation are unable to see where they can contribute and use their talents. The creation of this ‘hub’ aims to act as a repository for anti-racist work and activity within the Trust. It will guard against this type of attrition. This space will be open to our workforce and partners, providing a platform and enabling collective ownership of our anti-racism journey.
Therefore, we actively work on establishing our Anti-racism Influencers Group (ARIG). The Group is led and sponsored by one of the Trust Executive Leaders, the Trust Secretary. Within this group, we aim to develop the Allyship programme, to be sponsored by the ARIG. The Allyship programme is meant to be launched in October 2024.
We will invite all colleagues amongst our colleagues from wide majority group to join us on this journey and strengthen our strategic connection in this area. We will also reach out to peers who are already doing excellent work in anti-racism both nationally and regionally. Together we can transform and even abolish the structures, systems, policies, and practices that cause inequity.
We will support teams who are experiencing difficulties with racial discrimination or tension by offering training and enabling discussions. We can only be a truly anti-racist organisation if everyone feels empowered, enabled to act, identify, and tackle inequalities.
Therefore, we work on developing evidence-based bespoken programmes to providing various training and educational materials, related to anti-racism, to advance the inclusion culture within specific teams.
We will ensure that all patients have outstanding quality of care. No-one should be disadvantaged because of race or any other form of discrimination.
We want to ensure that all service users and carers feel understood and supported throughout their time and involvement with us.
We will advocate loudly for the diverse and marginalised groups in our communities. It is unacceptable that they continue to experience poorer outcomes.
We will continuously assess and evaluate our progress on our anti-racist journey. We will adjust strategies and practices as needed.
This will involve:
- Working on attaining the NW anti-racism Bronze and Silver Awards.
- Continue collating qualitative data related to our staff and patients’ experiences.
- Soliciting feedback from all employees and communities
- Tracking key performance indicators related to diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Setting measurable goals for improvement
At UHMBT, we acknowledge that Race equity and inclusion are everyone’s business.