When Branch Secretary M noticed that her branch was dealing with a spate of disciplinary investigations involving Black staff she was concerned enough to dig deeper.
These staff were all working on bank contracts on mental health wards within the trust. Many of the investigations involved suspensions during which, as bank workers, they received no pay. So the impact on the members was very serious indeed.
The cases typically involved issues around restraint or allegations of sleeping on duty, but further investigation often revealed differences in how staff were supported while on shift compared with substantive staff.
For example, substantive staff would support each other when doing 1-1s on a night shift by checking in, offering brief breaks etc. But with bank staff such support was not offered.
Talking through the cases with members M and her branch officers noticed that staff were disclosing unprompted that racist abuse from patients was a persistent and regular experience for them. However, this was not coming through in incident reports.
And members said that the response from management when they did report was often that nothing could be done due to the nature/condition of the patients.
Race gap in disciplinary rates
The branch brought the concerns about the racial disparity in disciplinary cases to the attention of the trust. The trust confirmed that something like 90% of disciplinary cases within the bank workforce involved Black staff but initially believed this reflected the make-up of the workforce. However, on further examination it was established that the bank workforce was in fact only 40% Black staff.
The branch is now working with the trust on a range of activities to address this inequality including a bank working group and embedding the Just Culture model. Scrutiny provisions have been introduced before disciplinary processes can proceed. These involve asking the presenting manager questions about the wider circumstances and context of a case.
As a result of this increased scrutiny and other measures to improve how staff are supported, disciplinary rates have come right down.
Tackling racist abuse
Hearing about the racist abuse on wards, M was struck by how many of these incidents were not being recorded. This could reflect staff feeling that nothing would be done, but there was also an issue with the amount of time it takes to complete individual incident reports – especially in cases where a patient might abuse a staff member repeatedly throughout a shift.
It also came to light that there was not a specific incident code for racist abuse making it complex to disentangle this from the data collected. A new specific code has now been created and implemented.
The branch plans to work with the trust on a month-long trial where staff will be asked to use a much simplified form to record all the incidents of racist abuse that occur. This will provide a snapshot to help identify the scale of under-reporting and whether there are particular trouble spots on particular wards, shift-times etc.
After this data is gathered the plan is to drill down and ask managers for information about how they responded to these incidents and which interventions were more or less effective.
Black staff have told the branch that even if patients do continue to abuse them it would make a huge difference to how supported and valued they feel if there was a robust response from colleagues and managers. A consistent and overt message to perpetrators that what they are doing is not acceptable would improve the working environment considerably.
Work is underway to identify consistent and effective interventions together with ways to encourage fellow staff to challenge racist behaviour and build confidence so everyone knows what to do and how to do it.
Building inclusion
The branch is also working with the trust to build a culture of inclusion and there is a joint recognition that this work will take time and that not everything that they try will work, but that the learning that comes from this will be very valuable.
The branch and the trust have looked at the composition of the wider workforce and – like most of the NHS – the senior levels of the organisation do not reflect the diversity of the workforce in lower bands.
As a first step, an event has been organised with the equality networks to explore career progression, to identify barriers and create more equal opportunities.
Learning points
Data
Official data doesn’t tell the whole story. While the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) data has to be published for substantive staff, it does not include bank staff. This means that a section of the workforce can be hidden from view and racial inequality missed.
But UNISON branches will often have a very good wider picture from enquiries and casework of things that may be going on under the radar.
Board level engagement
Engaging with boards is a very effective way of getting real accountability and the level of scrutiny that will change behaviour. A non-exec director is now involved with the bank working group that the branch sits on and this is helping drive the work forward.
Listening to Black staff
Through listening to Black staff’s experience the branch was able to follow up on a number of things that went much wider than the particular disciplinary issues they first presented with. And when a Black member of staff went to the board’s regular ‘staff story’ slot and spoke about their experiences of racist abuse it made a big impression. This has helped create the kind of top-down commitment in the organisation that is needed if progress is to be made.
Looking for ways to get people involved with the union
The branch support for the equality networks and getting the BAME network established will provide opportunities to get people more active in the union so that the activist base can become more diverse and representative.