For the purpose of drawing on good practice and effective interventions to support organisations with continuous improvement on workforce race equality, this section groups the nine Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) indicators into four themes.

The WRES team will continue to publish case studies on good practice on workforce race equality in the NHS, to provide further in-depth evidence and examples of practical interventions across the WRES indicator themes.

The themed areas are:

• Recruitment and staff development (WRES indicators 1, 2, 4 and 7)
• Disciplinary action (WRES indicator 3)
• Bullying, abuse and discrimination (WRES indicators 6 and 8)
• Board representation and culture (WRES indicator 9)

Case studies

Exemplar for embedding and sustaining continuous improvements

North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) has proved to be an example of an organisation that has embraced the challenges of tackling workforce race inequality. By having a robust strategy and demonstrable leadership, NELFT has seen sustained improvements across all WRES indicators from 2016 – 2018.

Recruitment and staff development

Bias, whether conscious or unconscious, impacts upon every stage of the recruitment and promotion process: from how the job description and person specification are written, how positions are advertised, how secondment opportunities are made available and filled, how interviews and assessments are designed and conducted, and how the selection process is undertaken.

Reducing bias in recruitment, promotion and staff development is essential if we are to meet the aspiration of realising representative leadership at all levels across the system.

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust – The key ambition of the trust is to increase the BME representation at leadership and senior management levels at bands 8a – 9 and very senior managers (VSM).

North East London NHS Foundation Trust – One of the key ambitions of the trust is to improve on the systemic recording and tracking of staff who apply, are successful and complete continuous professional development (CPD) training

Disciplinary process

There are occasions when disciplinary action is both appropriate and necessary within the NHS. Yet we know from WRES data for NHS trusts and for national healthcare bodies, that there are different rates of disciplinary action for white and BME staff, between similar types of organisations.

BME staff are more likely to enter the disciplinary process, stay in the process longer and have more draconian outcomes.

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust – The key ambition of the trust is reducing the disproportionate rate of BME staff entering the formal employee relations process compared to their white peers, with no case to answer.

London HRD Network in collaboration with NHS trusts across the London region – The region wide aim is reducing the disproportionate rate of BME staff entering the formal employee relations process compared to their white peers in London NHS trusts.

Chesterfield Royal NHS Foundation Trust – The key ambition of the trust is to continuously close the gap in experiences between BME and white staff on discrimination at work from a manager / team leader or other colleagues.