Workforce disability equality standard (WDES) annual report 2023

Contents

1. Executive summary
2. Background
3. WDES in 2022 and 2023
4. Consultation
5. Conclusion
6. Recommendations
7. WDES data table

1 Executive summary

This report provides an overview of the work required for RDaSH to meet its contractual requirements of the workforce disability equality standard (WDES) by promoting equality, diversity and inclusion for its disabled colleagues, gathering data from the electronic staff records system (ESR), recruitment, disciplinary and training datasets and the national staff survey as of 31 March 2023.

The data and statistics used in this report reflect workforce metrics, NHS staff survey metrics and a board re-presentation metric for the past three years.

It is evident from the data collected that there are disparities in the experience of disabled colleagues compared with non-disabled colleagues.

Comparing the 2023 WDES data against the data collected in 2022 has highlighted several areas which have improved and likewise deterioration in several areas which are a cause for concern which indicates that we still have a long way to go to eliminate the stigma and improve and enhance the experience of disabled colleagues within our workforce.

The EDI workstream and DAWN will co-produce an action plan that addresses areas of the WDES that require further improvement and submitted to the Executive Management team (EMT) and the board of directors for approval and support for implementation.

2 Background

This report states the process followed for data collection, analysis, and co-production of the action plan and highlights the areas of focus for 2023. This will enable RDaSH to demonstrate progress against the metrics of disability equality and introduce new measures and practices, which will help, improve workforce disability equality.

The WDES has been designed to improve the representation and experience of our disabled colleagues or colleagues who have a long-term health condition.

Since 2013, the earliest comparable year, up to the start of the pandemic (March 2020) the general trend in disability employment had been positive. There had been strong growth in the number and rate of disabled people in employment and a narrowing of the gap between the rate of disabled and non-disabled people in employment (the disability employment gap).

The pandemic initially reversed these trends with year-on-year changes showing a fall in the disability employment rate and a widening of the disability employment gap in 2020. During 2021 and the first half of 2022 the rate and gap started to return to near pre-pandemic levels.

However, the latest data for July to September 2022 shows the disability employment rate has fallen on the year with the non-disabled employment rate rising. This means that the disability employment gap is now at its widest point since 2018.

There were 4.9m disabled people in employment in the UK in July to September 2022. This is an increase of 240,000 on the year and an overall increase of 2.0m since the same quarter in 2013. The disability employment rate was 52.6% in July to September 2022, compared to 82.5% for non-disabled people.

The NHS constitution has a specific section that refers to the rights of colleagues. It recognised that it is the commitment, professionalism and dedication of colleagues working for the benefit of the people the NHS serves which really make the difference. High quality care requires high quality workplaces, with commissioners and providers aiming to be employers of choice. The workforce disability equality standard (WDES) is important because research shows that a motivated, included and valued workforce helps to deliver high quality patient care, increased patient satisfaction and improved patient safety.

The implementation of the WDES enables the trust to better understand the experiences of its disabled colleagues. It supports positive change for existing employees and enables a more inclusive environment for disabled people working in the trust, it also allows us to identify good practice and compare performance regionally and by type of trust.

Over the past three years it has been exceedingly challenging for all colleagues having to work through the pandemic and adjusting to new ways of working and finding a new normal post pandemic. Acknowledging this is important to fully appreciate the hard work and dedication of those committed to drive this agenda forward which has influenced the improvements made during unusual and challenging circumstances.

Whilst there are still areas which the trust need to focus on it is now more than ever that we need to embed disability equality into the trust to support our colleagues who are disproportionately impacted by the challenges post pandemic.

3 WDES in 2022 and 2023

Please note, for all metrics we have highlighted both positive and negative trends that are statistically significant plus or minus 0.3%, anything below 0.3% is considered static, denoted by positive, negative, and static respectively.

Metric 1, percentage of disabled colleagues in the workforce broken down by AFC band

• There has been an overall improvement in bands 1 to 8 in non-clinical and clinical colleagues declaring that they have a disability or long-term health condition, however, we have a significant deterioration in M and D consultants and above.
• It is evident when comparing the percentage declared in our staff survey results that further work in educating our workforce and reducing the stigma around declaration of health conditions. This will be readdressed in the WDES action plan for 2023 to 2024.

Metric 2

• Although this metric shows a deterioration again, as of 31 March 2023, 149 disabled applicants were shortlisted and 61 appointed compared to 264 being shortlisted in 2022 and 26 applicants being appointed. Overall non-disabled shortlisted applicants as of 31 March 2023 was 1811 (including not declared) with 541 being appointed.
• Work has commenced with the people experience team to promote RDaSH as a preferred employer for applicants with a disability or long-term health conditions and the EDI advisor is currently developing a toolkit and training package for colleagues and managers to promote awareness and break down barriers to inclusive recruitment.

Metric 3

• A figure above 1.00 indicates that disabled colleagues are more likely than non-disabled staff to enter for formal capability process.

Metric 4, colleagues feeling harassed, bullied, or abused in the last 12 months

• Metric 4a shows another year on year improvement, the experience of both disabled and non-disabled colleague’s remains high and is an area of concern that will be carried forward in the WDES action plan for 2023/2024.

• Metric 4b reflects a significant decrease in colleagues experiencing harassment or bullying from managers.

• Metric 4c shows a year on year improvement from 2022, this figure is still relatively high and further intensive cultural work needs to be undertaken in this area.

• Metric 4d shows a significant improvement for reporting for disabled colleagues, however, it is important to note that non-disabled colleagues reporting has yet again deteriorated which is cause for concern.
• Work is ongoing to improve reporting procedures and will be included in the WDES action plan 2023 to 2024 to monitor progress

Metric 5

• Whilst we have seen an improvement there is still a significant gap in disabled colleagues believing they receive equal opportunities in terms of career progression or promotion at work in comparison with non-disabled colleagues.
• This will continue to be monitored through the WDES action plan 2023 to 2024 and through the work the organisational development team are conducting with talent management.

Metric 6

• This metric has seen a year on year improvement, however, there is still a gap compared to non-disabled colleagues who have had a significant negative declaration this year. This is an on-going action in the WDES action plan and although has been successful still requires further action to close the gap and will be carried forward into the 2023/2024 action plan.

Metric 7

• There has been a slight improvement with disabled colleagues saying they are satisfied with the extent to which the organisation values their work, the disability and wellbeing network chair and members are taking this action forward as part of their objectives to raise awareness of what RDaSH has to offer.

Metric 8

• This is a positive trend and has increased year on year, we will continue to raise awareness and strive to eliminate any barriers to obtaining reasonable adjustments. It is envisaged with the implementation of the disability toolkit and training and access to the reasonable adjustments centralised budget that we can close this gap.

Metric 9

• This trend has increased for disabled colleagues with a slight increase for non-disabled colleagues.
• The findings from the colleague’s survey whilst showing improvements for disabled colleagues in some areas, shows our disabled colleagues are having a less positive experience than non-disabled colleagues. We are committed to working with our disability and wellbeing network to address areas of difference
  and work together to bring about improvements.

Metric 10

• Whilst we have seen a significant increase in declaration from the board membership it should be noted that 33% are still reflecting as ‘unknown or not declared’.

4 Consultation

The outcome of the data analysis has been discussed at the EDI workstream and place-based EDI meetings and the DAWN colleagues network to obtain an initial observation regarding the changes in the data.

5 Conclusion

There has been improvement across most of the metrics, which reflects the work which has been undertaken within the trust to improve the experience of disabled colleagues.

The trust has made great strides in creating a culture where disability equality matters and is to be commended in seeing a change in many of the metrics which equate to more positive experiences for colleagues. It is recognised that more work needs to take place at a managerial level.

The total headcount from ESR reflects that 262 colleagues have declared that they have a disability or long-term health condition on comparison with the respondents from the staff survey for the staff engagement score 531 colleagues from our organisation responded to the disability element. Further intensive work is required to ensure that our workforce have the awareness of why it is in their best interest to declare their status on ESR.

The care groups hold regular EDI focused meetings where the WDES is a standing agenda item which is then incorporated into their local action plans. It is also a standing item on the DAWN meeting agenda.

The EDI, organisational development team and learning and development teams have been consulting and working closely with the DAWN network over the past year and have conducted a training needs analysis survey to ascertain which areas require more focus, as a result disabled colleagues are being approached to take part in the talent management program and 1:1 career development coaching sessions. This work will be ongoing throughout 2023/2024.

It has been proposed that nationally mandatory training will be introduced on neuro-diversity awareness for all colleagues:

• level 1, all colleagues
• level 2, supervisors and line managers
• level 3, VSMs, board and non-execs

The metrics which have seen a deterioration will be the focus of the co-produced action plan. Further work will be required to explore poor declaration rates within the medical workforce. The launch of the new civility and respect programme and the restorative just culture programme will hopefully have an impact on the bullying and harassment experienced by colleagues.

A comparison needs to be made with internal information as this data is gathered though the staff survey. The trust will continue to ensure that the board’s recruitment process is inclusive to ensure diversity across all the protected characteristics. A further conversation will take place to look at a senior leader’s, video log promoting and role modelling self-declaration to encourage other colleagues to do so.

Discussions have already commenced with the DAWN group regarding presenteeism so we can improve experiences and address metric 6.

6 Recommendations

The executive management team and board are asked to review the data and sign off the information presented prior to the required publication on the trust’s website by 30 September 2023.

The forthcoming action plan needs to be agreed and published by 31 October 2023.

7 WDES data table

WDES metric 1

Staff in AfC pay bands or medical and dental subgroups and very senior managers (including executive board members) compared with the percentage of staff in the overall workforce.

WDES metric 2

WDES metric 3

WDES metric 4

WDES metric 4a

WDES metric 4b

WDES metric 4c

WDES metric 4d

WDES metric 5

WDES metric 6

WDES metric 7

WDES metric 8

WDES metric 9

WDES metric 10

 

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Document control

• Author: Amanda Ambler.
• Role: Equality, diversity and inclusion advisor.

Page last reviewed: May 20, 2024
Next review due: May 20, 2025

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