Nursing and Midwifery Council does discrimination review with 7 protected characteristics not including Sex or Maternity

[gardenbird48]

when looking at the NMC's submission for the GRA fully supportive of self-id, I came across this paragraph:

While the numbers in this category is low and should be interpreted with caution, our data suggests that trans nurses, midwives and nursing associates are more likely to be referred to us to assess their fitness to practice. The next stage of our work will involve us digging deeper to understand why these differences exist, which will inform what action we then take.

so I read the report looking at discrimination etc and they mention gender and gender identity but not sex (although sometimes they seem to use gender when they mean sex). I haven't managed to read the whole thing yet but it is very confused.

36.1 We have looked at more protected characteristics (the seven
characteristics for which we have data: age, disability, ethnicity,
gender, gender identity, religion or belief, sexual orientation).

www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/edi-docs/nmc_edi_research_full.pdf

How is this happening? The list of protected characteristics should be plain as day. I know, I know... everywhere has been Stonewalled... But are they thick? Do they never look at the actual law themselves?
And how tragically hilarious that the fricking Nursing and Midwifery Council doesn't care about sex and maternity, of all things!!!

Oh god some days I just get so tired with all this shit...🤦🏻‍♀️

It seems to be getting more and more common that sex and gender are conflated. For most individual organisations doing this, I think it’s accidental, but the push behind it isnt accidental IMO.

The list of PCs should be advertised everywhere to stop this crap.

how have the NMC not realised that maternity is a protected characteristic

I know - I pretty much know them off by heart now and the full text of the law is just an Ecosia search away (I’m off google since they got involved in trying to game the first gra consultation) - I can’t believe their members are aware of this sloppiness - nurses are famously no nonsense! And they will know what sex is.

Very concerning that they don’t even consider maternity as a possible basis for discrimination- I would think that nursing with its physical demands would need to be quite aware of not indirectly discriminating against pregnant women.

What is somewhat concerning is that they identify fitness to practise referrals are higher for trans people. I don’t know how these things work but I hope they actually study this properly and apply normal professional standards rather than just assume transphobia. I imagine a fitness to practise referral is quite a serious thing so wouldn’t be done lightly by the person reporting but investigating it in an organisation so apparently captured may not be objective.

Do we have any NMC members here?

They are very bothered about a certain 0.6% of their members though.

To be fair, I think it's more that they'll have pulled this data from their equality monitoring information, which don't normally record pregnancy/maternity as it's a temporary state.

They should still say sex rather than gender though.

How come they don’t know? I think they know very well what the problems are about but too overwhelmed by the wokerati to consider 50% of their service users. I guess everyone is just too busy with fighting the virus to deal with the contradictions.

"our data suggests that trans nurses, midwives and nursing associates are more likely to be referred to us to assess their fitness to practice. The next stage of our work will involve us digging deeper to understand why these differences exist"

Because they are goons.

Should just point out that the NMC is manifestly corrupt, based on my own experience. Part of that corruption is pretending to be incompetent when believe me, it really isn't. But that's a common ruse to bamboozle the unwary.

I reported a care home manager to the NMC - the home nearly killed my mother. It took - get this - nearly five years for the case to reach the panel. Along the way they did the usual tricks beloved by State regulators - pretended to be 'on the case' from the get-go to make a good impression and string you along (so you won't switch and take legal action), ran the clock down, lured me into going over your complaint (to actually redraft it and water down your allegations), went off the radar for an entire year, then ignored all the evidence I provided and said my mum nearly dying was pretty much just one of those things you get in care homes!

All topped off by the fact that said care home manager has no medical qualifications so shouldn't legally have been managing a nursing home. The NMC ignored this probably to engage in a cover-up of Surrey County Council negligence.

It is a State regulator and not to be taken seriously. The aim is to allow unscrupulous businesses to fleece the general public without impediment, inform said businesses about what the public might have on them in the event of future legal action, and generally degrade and gaslight the public.

The Care Quality Commission - which used to be run by Andrea Sutcliffe, now head of the NMC - was and is much in the same mood.

To be fair, I think it's more that they'll have pulled this data from their equality monitoring information, which don't normally record pregnancy/maternity as it's a temporary state.

It's a permanently impossible state for male transpeople, so they've automatically got that (null) data. Seems unlikely there would be statistically significant numbers of trans female hcps who are pregnant. So - as this appears to be in relation to hcps not patients, maybe they left those out because they're pretty much irrelevant?

It's a permanently impossible state for male transpeople, so they've automatically got that (null) data. Seems unlikely there would be statistically significant numbers of trans female hcps who are pregnant. So - as this appears to be in relation to hcps not patients, maybe they left those out because they're pretty much irrelevant?

I'm not sure I really get your point? I was trying to say that I've never seen an equality monitoring form that captures pregnancy and maternity info because it is always a temporary state in a way that the other protected characteristics are not. It's unlikely that someone will stop being disabled for example, but the protected characteristic of pregnancy and maternity under the Equality Act only lasts during the pregnancy and 6 months after the birth. Given how often people typically update their equality information (if at all), trying to use that data to capture pregnancy/maternity info would produce very unreliable results.

But surely an employer keeps records of maternity, for leave and pay? I understand it's not likely to be on a diversity monitoring form, but I'd hope they'd find a way to work it into the data as the information does exist somewhere.

But surely an employer keeps records of maternity, for leave and pay?

They should have that information in some form, but I imagine it's much harder to collate that data and I would suspect is rarely done. I'm happy to be corrected though if anyone here works in HR and does collate that data.

Maternity can be a massive source of discriminatory behaviour in the workplace. So while it's probably pretty much irrelevant in this particular instance, in most cases where organisations are looking for systematic biases in relation to protected characteristics it would be enormously important.

Given the deaths that have occurred and the really poor quality of care in some places, would it not be better for the NMC to focus on the health and welfare of mothers, or am I being too simplistic.

I think when Covid-19 is under control, Matt Hancock will have to look at this, throughout the NHS and bring some order and clarity.

While the numbers in this category is low and should be interpreted with caution, our data suggests that trans nurses, midwives and nursing associates are more likely to be referred to us to assess their fitness to practice.

This is a very serious concern. The numbers are low because trans people are a tiny minority of the population. But why are people making more complaints about them than about other staff?

Very few people would dare make an official complaint about a staff member purely on the grounds of being transgender. If anyone did, it wouldn’t get as far as being referred to the NMC to assess their fitness to practise. The complainer would be in trouble for transphobia.

No, that’s about something the staff member has done wrong, deliberately or through negligence or incompetence.

Possibly by not putting the care and needs of the patient first. I wonder how/ whether basic biology is being taught these days?

@ErrolTheDragon

Maternity can be a massive source of discriminatory behaviour in the workplace. So while it's probably pretty much irrelevant in this particular instance, in most cases where organisations are looking for systematic biases in relation to protected characteristics it would be enormously important.

It was the key factor in my equal pay claim.

It's not like my then employer sat down and decided "I know, we'll pay the women less."

The situation evolved as the unintended by product of a system of very long pay scales, tiny annual increments (such that hardly anyone of either sex ever reached target rate for the job), performance related pay (slightly less tiny increments for those who "exceeded expectations") plus a system which gave a default mark of "met" to women on maternity leave.

8, 10 years into the job a woman who'd had a maternity leave or two would find herself, on average, on slightly lower pay than the man sitting next to her even though both were doing the job equally well.

But are they thick? Do they never look at the actual law themselves?

Exactly - why are they not referring to the correct legislation?

This raising very worrying questions about their competence.

the seven characteristics for which we have data

I'm trying to get my head around this - have I missed something? - they aren't collecting data on the protected characteristic of pregnancy and maternity?

To be fair, I think it's more that they'll have pulled this data from their equality monitoring information, which don't normally record pregnancy/maternity as it's a temporary state.

But the impact of pregnancy/maternity and the impact of having suffered discrimination because of pregnancy/maternity are not a temporary state.

8, 10 years into the job a woman who'd had a maternity leave or two would find herself, on average, on slightly lower pay than the man sitting next to her even though both were doing the job equally well.

Exactly - it's this kind of thing that desperately needs to be evaluated not just because of impact on salary, but also impact on pensions and women accessing management roles.

Perhaps the discrepancy in pay is acceptable because the man will have gained more experience, or perhaps experience is being over valued if they are both doing the same job to an equal standard. Either way, it's impossible to tell if no data is being collected.

This is the kind of thing that flies over the heads of all the idiots who think equality is just 'being kind'.

Has the NMC ever investigated why black midwives and nurses are more likely to be investigated for fitness to practice?

Serious question.

@merrymouse

To be fair, I think it's more that they'll have pulled this data from their equality monitoring information, which don't normally record pregnancy/maternity as it's a temporary state.

But the impact of pregnancy/maternity and the impact of having suffered discrimination because of pregnancy/maternity are not a temporary state.

Exactly, I understand what the pp is saying but I think if that is the case then that is a cop out and a report intended to examine discrimination based on pcs should have found a way to gather that data as it is an entirely valid consideration that women may be or feel discriminated against because of maternity.

On reflection I guess the report is looking at whether there is a bias in the levels of complaints against groups of people based on their pcs but surely they should be examining whether women are being complained about (fitness to practise questioned) because of being pregnant. If it is found that they are not then happy days but why not even ask the question? It might uncover an important issue.

On reflection I guess the report is looking at whether there is a bias in the levels of complaints against groups of people based on their pcs but surely they should be examining whether women are being complained about (fitness to practise questioned) because of being pregnant. If it is found that they are not then happy days but why not even ask the question? It might uncover an important issue.

I do think they should do this but it is a harder question. They'd need to look at whether the complaint related to actions that occurred whilst the nurse/midwife was pregnant or 6 months postpartum. It's unlikely that they have that info on the same system and the time-sensitive nature of it makes it more complicated than just working out which staff are trans and how many of them have ever had fitness to practice complaints.

I do think it's worth doing though and I also don't think they should leap to conclusions and say that complaints made against trans nurses/midwives must be down to transphobia.