- Conference
- 2022 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 9 December 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the Workplace Disability Equality Standard is a list of ten metrics which measure the extent to which health Trusts in England deliver disability equality in the workplace. The first WDES report, covering 2019, was published in March 2020. The second WDES report, covering 2020, was significantly delayed and was not published until October 2021.
Some of the key findings of the most recent report are as follows:
• 26.3% (one in four) of disabled staff reported harassment, bullying or abuse, compared to 18.5% of non-disabled staff. This rises to one in three for ambulance trust staff and London also has higher levels.
• Disabled staff were 1.54 times more likely to enter the formal performance management capability process. Ambulance trusts and the South West region have roughly double the rate of disabled staff entering capability proceedings compared to non-disabled staff.
• 30.6% of disabled staff stated they felt pressure from their manager to come to work, despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties. This compares to 21.2% of non-disabled staff and is a particular problem in the ambulance service.
• 26.2% of disabled staff felt that their employer had not made adequate adjustments, with the ambulance service and London region reporting the worst results for this metric
• Disabled staff are 10% points less likely to feel satisfied with the extent to which their organisation values their work compared to non-disabled staff and this gap has widened over the last few years.
• Disabled staff in trusts in London and the ambulance service were least likely to feel that their trust provided equal opportunities for career progression or promotion.
Conference is concerned that, with over a quarter of disabled staff not having the adjustments they need, 42% of trusts reported that they had not yet introduced a reasonable adjustments policy. The overall percentage of disabled staff who agree their employer has made adequate adjustments has remained largely unchanged over the last five years, demonstrating a lack of prioritisation of this issue by trusts.
Unfortunately, the WDES report does not include trust-level data, making it more difficult to identify those trusts where the most work is needed to ensure equality for disabled workers.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive to work with the National Disabled Members Committee to:
1. Develop a campaign to work with branches and regions in England, and with sector committees, on identifying the key issues in the WDES report and raising these with the employer at all levels;
2. Produce resources highlighting the barriers disabled workers face in NHS workplaces;
3. Produce materials that can also be used in trusts in the devolved nations, and campaign for the extension of the WDES beyond England;
4. Call for trust level data to be published so that we can make a real difference to disabled workers lives.