Tackling equality in North East public services
Organisations across the North East were today challenged with exploring how they could improve equality and opportunities for black, Asian and minority and ethnic (BAME) people at an event hosted by North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), headed by keynote speaker, head of race equality for NHS England, Yvonne Coghill.
Almost 100 representatives from the public private and voluntary sector responded to the invitation from the regional NHS lead for equality, NEAS Chief Executive Yvonne Ormston, to understand the obstacles faced by BAME people and organisations wanting to improve their approach to race equality for existing and future employees, service users and customers.
Yvonne Coghill is director for the implementation of the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) at NHS England. The WRES is designed to ensure employees from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace, which is important because studies shows that a motivated, included and valued workforce are more productive and help to deliver high quality patient care, increased patient satisfaction and better patient safety.
She said: “We have to value and appreciate every member of NHS staff to make sure we get the best from them and they give their very best to care for patients.
“The evidence shows that the experience of black and minority ethnic staff is a very good barometer of the climate of respect and care for all within NHS trusts.”
The ambulance sector is considered to perform less well than other NHS organisations for race equality, however, the make-up of its workforce is very different to that of NHS organisations because it does not currently attract specialist healthcare roles, such as doctors.
NEAS chief executive Yvonne Ormston is the regional NHS lead looking to improve equality for people from different races and she also has national responsibility for equality across the ambulance sector. She explains why she felt the event was necessary to make a difference: “We want to make sure our service treats BAME people fairly, gives them the same opportunities and provides a comprehensive service irrespective of an individuals’ characteristics or background. We know that we can do that better in this region by working in partnership with our neighbouring colleagues by bringing together people from our fire, police, healthcare, local authority, voluntary and community organisations.”
The North East has a less ethnically diverse population that the national average with just over six percent of people from non-White British backgrounds. Only 53 per cent of BAME people in this region aged 16 to 64 are employed, which is 12 per cent lower than the national average. Almost 16 per cent of BAME people in the North East are unemployed compared to 11 per cent of the region’s overall population. And over 36 percent per cent of the region’s BAME population are recorded as economically inactive, compared to just 26 per cent for the overall region’s population.
Evidence globally suggests that people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (BME) that live in white majority countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have poorer life chances and experiences compared to their white counterparts. For example, BAME people are more likely to experience chronic diseases and die sooner, they make less money over their lifetime and are less likely to be promoted, they live in poorer areas and they are more likely to be imprisoned.
Yvonne continues: “Understanding the challenges BAME people face is really important for us to identify where we can make changes and be more proactive to improve equality in this region.
“We have been able to explore some of the key challenges faced by the health sector and other organisations today and had the opportunity to listen to and share experiences and best practice around race equality and get helpful advice and information from partners and NHS England about what people can do to overcome some of the challenges. And above all, we have now created a network of expertise across the region that we can build upon.”
Notes to editors
For more information, contact the NEAS press office on 0191 430 2099 or email publicrelations@neas.nhs.uk
About North East Ambulance Service
North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (NEAS) covers 3,200 square miles across the North East region. It employs more than 2,600 staff and serves a population of 2.7 million people by handling all NHS111 and 999 calls for the region, operating patient transport and ambulance response services, delivering training for communities and commercial audiences and providing medical support cover at events.
In 2017/18 the service answered over 1.4 million emergency 999 and NHS 111 calls, responded to 280,00 incidents that resulted in a patient being taken to hospital, treated and discharged 27,000 patients with telephone advice and treated and discharged over 100,000 patients at home. In the same year, clinical crews responded to 126,746 of our highest priority patients within the national targets and scheduled care crews completed almost 580,000 patient transport journeys.
About Yvonne Coghill
Yvonne Coghill OBE, JP, MSc, DMS, RGN, RMN, HV, CPT, Dip Exec Coaching.
Yvonne commenced nurse training at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1977, qualified as a general nurse in 1980 and then went on to qualify in mental health nursing and health visiting. In 1986 she secured her first NHS management job and has since held a number of operational and strategic leadership posts.
In 2004, she had the unique opportunity to work at the Department of Health as Private Secretary to the Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir Nigel Crisp. In her three years at the Department, Yvonne held several strategic posts, including Programme Director for the Cleaner Hospitals Programme and External Relations Nursing Officer to the Chief Nursing Officer of England.
Yvonne is currently the Director – WRES Implementation in NHS England, and is a member of the equality and diversity council at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in the United States where she has helped develop their inclusion strategy, delivered workshops and was co-chair at their national forum in Orlando 2015. She has also been keynote speaker at the National Association of Health Service Executives (NAHSE) annual conference in New Orleans. She continues to work closely with world expert on health and race Professor D. Williams, of Harvard University School of Public Health.
Recently Yvonne has used her knowledge and experience of mental health to act as a commissioner on a report commissioned by the Royal college of Psychiatrists and chaired by Lord Crisp on ‘Adult mental health in patient services’ which fed into the NHS England task force review on mental health services in England.
In 2013 Yvonne was voted by colleagues in the NHS as one of the top 50 most inspirational women, one of the top 50 most inspirational nurse leaders and one of the top 50 BME pioneers, two years in a row. Yvonne was awarded an OBE for services to healthcare in 2010 and was appointed as Director for WRES Implementation in June 2015.