Southern Health director speaks out on Black Lives Matter and inequalities in the NHS

Paul Draycott, director of workforce, organisational development and communications at Southern Health NHS Trust, has laid out a series of changes the trust will make to improve its equality.

These include following up every incident of racism; publishing statistics on black, Asian and other ethnic minorities recruitment and representation; and being fully representative of the population at all levels within the next five years.

Mr Draycott said: ‘Nobody will have missed the changes in our world over the past few months. Covid-19 has had a profound impact on what we do and how we do it; and so has the death of George Floyd in the US and the continuing rise of Black Lives Matter – a movement trying to fight the centuries of discrimination and environments that don’t value diversity and inclusivity.

‘Diversity brings richness to our world. We are all different. Different heritage, ideals, values, education, talents, likes and dislikes. In teams diversity brings greater success especially when considering problem solving, innovation, strategy and difficult challenges.’

According to UK census data (2011), people from Black, Asian and Minority make up 13 per cent of the national population but 20.8 per cent of NHS workers are from those same backgrounds.

In NHS trusts across the country, at director level, only 7 per cent of roles are filled by Black, Asian and other Ethnic minority colleagues.

Mr Draycott added: ‘When you consider that 61 per cent of healthcare workers who died from Covid-19 were from BAME backgrounds it should make us reflect.

‘I make no apologies – it feels uncomfortable to me and many other people because it should do.

‘It feels that we are very much at a critical point in the movement to improve social justice and eliminate racism. Diversity and inclusivity are beautiful things and reap such reward.

‘I sincerely hope that we can look back in 10 years and say 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement changed things for the better here at Southern Health, across the NHS, the UK and around the world.’

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