Brought up equality and diversity in staff meeting

[Bottomplasters]

AIBU to be raging, thinking a lot over the past week about my workplace (Nhs) and do we do enough to promote equality and diversity, are we part of the problem, do I individually do enough and say enough.

I'm a senior manager and it was a managers meeting. I just said what I've said above, do we do enough to promote equality and diversity, before I could even go any further, I was shot down with the following:

You are making a problem when their isn't a problem.

Out service users are 90% male british, our staffing model reflects that

On and on, making me feel like this isn't an issue.

How can I be taken seriously? Anything I can read?

[nocoolnamesleft]

Were they really saying that male British equated to male white British? Bloody hell.

[rosiejaune]

Maybe their service users are 90% (white?) British males because other people find the service inaccessible/unwelcoming due to systemic racism...

And of course, YANBU. But regardless of what you read, they may never be willing to listen.

[Gindrinker43]

Do you have an E&D lead and a strategy for the organisation, start there.

[CookieMumsters]

Did the meeting have an agenda? Was E&D on it? If not start there.

Did you have a concrete action or idea you wanted to discuss? Or were you just 'thinking out loud'? Generally that just frustrates people, meetings go on long enough without endless discussion.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Out service users are 90% male british, our staffing model reflects that

Unless you do prostate cancer, this cannot be true at all.
The NHS is one of the most diverse workforce’s in all majority white countries. Both by BAME and women.

[Bottomplasters]

Our service users are 90% male british but definetly not white.

Maybe I was being unreasonable and just wanted to voice my thoughts

E and d was on the agenda

[Doggybiccys]

@Bottomplasters - not sure of the point you are making. Can you give more detail why you think this is an E&D issue?

[Bottomplasters]

I was asking colleagues how we can be more inclusive

[Doggybiccys]

Ok. But what has 90% of SUs being British male got to do with it? And the thing about the staffing reflecting that? Are u trying to make the service more inclusive or the workforce? Still not seeing the point of your posts??

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Is ED= Erectile Dysfunction?
What man with ED would prefer a female doctor to handle his bits? Is this not similar to how women prefer a female doctor for gynaecology and so men prefer a male doctor for erectile dysfunction?

Would you force patients to have their genitalia handled by doctors of the opposite sex? Is that your solution?

[NailsNeedDoing]

Did you tell them any ideas you had to be more inclusive or if you thought you did enough to promote equality and diversity?

Maybe it wasn’t so much what you said, bit the way you said it?

[PlanDeRaccordement]

As for BAME, the BMJ reported
“Among associate specialists, specialty doctors, and staff grade doctors, the proportion was between 48% and 51%.” (Of BAME)
www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i6406

So for prostate doctors in the NHS, 48%-51% are not white doctors. I’d think there was a problem with diversity too, but more because white doctors are under-represented.......

[HotPenguin]

Very unreasonable of your colleagues to not even entertain the thought that there may be more to do on diversity, especially when diversity was the issue on the agenda. What's the point in discussing an issue if you've made up your mind nothing needs to be done? I'm not sure why other posters assume you are talking about male/female as I assumed you were talking about race? It doesn't sound like you even had a chance at the meeting to say where you thought more needed to be done unfortunately .

[PrincessConsueIaBananaHammock]

do swe do enough to promote equality and diversity, are we part of the problem, do I individually do enough and say enough.

Well do you? What's your opinion? What are your ideas? What are do you want to improve, staffing or service users? If you want to make something like this happen in a meeting then you need to lead it. X,y, z are and issue we could try a,b,c.

[Doggybiccys]

@PlanDeRaccordement - not sure if you are being sarcastic or not but I’m reading it as E&D ie equality & diversity rather than ED. Either way it’s a pointless thread without more context

[Griefmonster]

It sounds like an offloading of guilt without any focus. You maybe need to think through some ideas first and present solutions for specific issues you have identified for discussion rather than a vague "we must do something".

If you haven't already then a good starter is "why I'm no longer talking to white people about race". The author also has a podcast series. Also look on TED talks who are profiling black contributors (although very US heavy). I am sure NHS will have staff or patient networks that have done work on racism that you can access.

[Bottomplasters]

@Doggybiccys cheers for that

[TeaAndBrie]

The NHS Trust that I work for has Equality and Inclusion champions in every team. They attend meetings and feedback monthly to the clinical team regarding what's happening but also to allow the team to voice opinions and ideas for Inclusion. The team also asks service users for their feedback and ideas in order that the service can develop appropriately