In June 2023, the Black Country Integrated Care System (ICS) published its first Workforce Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy, to address the inequalities experienced by staff in the workplace.
Developed in consultation and collaboration with partners across the Black Country, the strategy sets out six pledges:
- Data analysis: publish a system-standardised approach to the ethnicity pay gap
- Leadership and accountability: ensure there is an EDI representative on Board recruitment panels and a report on EDI activity progressed within organisations
- Inclusive people practices: identify an EDI objective as part of the appraisal process for every staff member
- Improve staff health and well-being: support staff through reasonable adjustments and introduce disability staff passport
- Improve system-wide learning and development: become an anti-racist organisation and ensure anti-racism training is available to all staff
- Improve communications and engagement of staff: set up a staff network forum to support staff networks.
In February, more than 20 staff network representatives from across the Black Country system attended a two-day workshop focused on the sixth pledge - the development of a staff network forum.
The staff network forum will aim to improve communication and engagement with staff at a system level, ensuring all employees with a protected characteristic and those from marginalised groups and minority background are actively engaged.
Attendees at the workshop were given the opportunity to share insight and feedback on the role that the forum should play to ensure that all staff in the Black Country have a voice and are heard and listened to about matters that are important to them regarding equality, diversity and inclusion. A further meeting will take place over the next few months to finalise the forum and how it will operate in the future.
Shajeda Ahmed, Chief People Officer for the NHS Black Country ICS, said: “One of our EDI pledges in our ICS EDI strategy is to develop a system-wide staff network forum to improve communication and engagement with staff at a system level.
“Our staff network chairs play a vital role in championing inclusion across the Black Country and are key to supporting our workforce, so it was great to see so many colleagues come together and participate in our two-day EDI network chairs workshop.
“The Black Country has a rich diversity of people, and the ICS is committed to addressing the workforce inequalities and discrimination that many of our staff face in the workplace. There is still much to be done, but this marks an important step in our journey as we continue to implement our EDI strategy over the next three years.”
The workshop also follows the System Chief Executives Forum, which took place earlier this year in January, where each NHS CEO in the Black Country agreed to pledge their support for the implementation of the ICS EDI strategy.
As a result, each NHS CEO has taken personal responsibility for the implementation of one of the six pledges over the next four years:
- Data analysis: Anthony Marsh, West Midlands Ambulance Service
- Leadership and accountability: Diane Wake, The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust
- Inclusive people practices: Marsha Foster, Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Improve staff health and well-being: David Loughton, The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
- Improve system-wide learning and development: Mark Axcell, Black Country Integrated Care Board
- Improve communications and engagement of staff: Richard Beeken, Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust.
Further information on this will be shared over the coming months.
A video of what the EDI strategy means for the Black Country can be viewed on YouTube here.
