NHS Policy Audit - working party

[KnottyAuty]

Following on from Thread #23 of the Peggie v NHS Employment Tribunal. Anyone who wants to help with survey/audit of paperwork against the Equality Act protected characteristics please join here 😊

We've discussed here for years how this political position is incompatible with doing the job at hand.

Once the focus creeps in, it pushes everything else out: the service users and service itself have no relevance beyond serving the political agenda. As commented yesterday 'it hollows out the host'. There is going to have to eventually be a serious addressing of the boundaries of political views, and on the compatability of wishing to adhere to such extreme partisan politics while holding a job requiring impartiality and a total focus on service users and not how the role can be purposed for political advancement of some other agenda.

It is completely unethical, isn’t it?

All of which as evidenced by everything we are finding out in this audit.

I do think this may be why doing this research has been so hard. Because it is hard evidence of the fact that our entire healthcare system thinks of women as second class citizens. Over and over again.

The trans and non-binary staff policy I'm looking at reads as if making trans people happy is literally the only objective of the organisation.

I searched on 'disclosure' looking for something about DBS checks. Note that many staff in this organisation will deal with children. There are 22 mentions of 'disclosure'. 1 relates to DBS checks. The other 21 are all about how other staff have to walk on eggshells not to 'disclose' a trans person with a GRC's status. Rather ignoring the fact that most staff and patients have eyes and ears and sex is almost always going to be immediately apparent.

It's all very Orwellian "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

The DBS bit says this:
"Criminal record / disclosure and barring checks. If an appointment requires criminal record checks, we will highlight to all applicants the confidential procedure available to Trans and Non-Binary people."

What about if a child perceives (correctly) someone as one sex or another? What about safeguarding children according to sex of HCP? Nothing about that.

I'm interested to understand of the ways that the new NHS child gender clinics are going to have to operate, in the light of the ruling.

I found some “interesting” things under “consent” policies in at least one trust I searched.

ETA: it’s like those moulds or viruses that take over wasps’ bodies. The whole thing is operating in the service of one, invasive group.

If a child perceives sex accurately, as a patient, would that result in denial of care? The staff policy says that recognising the reality of sex is harassment. What about patients? I don't think they have a policy - Ermine's FOI asked about it and she was told (after some chasing) it was 'imminent' but I can't find it online. I will follow up with my own FOI.

And in any case, how can an HCP speak in a truthful way to a child recognising sex of another HCP if they know they'll get fired for mentioning actual sex of that person? It's the Stasi, 1984 and McCarthyism rolled into one.

The staff policy also talks about 'hate incidents'.

Apparently having eyes that see is a hate incident... 🙄

I predict that your Trust achieved Stonewall Gold.

In the pyramid scheme where you pay for advice on policy to get points, it’s not in Stonewall’s interest to release all the clauses at once. So they dripped various clauses out as Trusts paid/progressed. The DBS clause strongly correlated with Gold. Would be interested to hear whether others find that to be true or not?

Outrageous. This should not be where the NHS is focussing.

and who is going to decide what is a ‘hate incident’?

Are we going to have the situation where hurty words from a patient are a more serious demeanour than a sexual assault, as we currently have in our judicial system?

Oh I think we know exactly the type of person who gets to decide. The completely unaccountable Stasi NHS DEI apparatchiks.

They truly believe they can force us all to believe up is down, night is day and two plus two equals five.

I’m not in a position right now to help, but I’ve been following this thread. I can imagine how you all feel, because I’m horrified, just reading. Thank you all so much. So very, very well done.

Worryingly these policies don’t capture the full horror of this regime.

(Yes I’m now calling it a regime! Within the NHS it was totalitarian in nature controlling behaviour, speech and patient care).

It’s the in-person/video training is what I’m pondering over. Apparently pronouns were presented by Stonewall as “optional” in the verbal presentations but behind the scenes over time the policies were hardened so that “mis gendering” became a disciplinary offence. Lists of dog whistles were drawn up but people weren’t allowed to know what was on the list.

I really recommend listening to the podcast as it adds a completely new dimension when reading these policies. And explains how they happened over a period of 10 years. For those of use looking at it now it seems completely mental but they got away with it by creep.

It’s terrifying this level of capture happened and we need to make sure controls are put in place so it never happens again

Absolutely agree with this.

@KnottyAuty the stonewall accreditation paper trail is my task for this morning, in between paid work! I strongly suspect you're right as the documents have stonewall fingerprints all over them, but the question will be whether they've tried to hide it.

If you google on the website 'stonewall' only one page comes up - a page promoting a particular staff member who says "“I was first attracted to work for the Trust as I knew they were a Stonewall employer – and I have been incredibly impressed with the work they do to promote equality. I am a member of the LGBTQ+ staff network and feel incredibly supported to be able to bring my whole-self to work.”

Unlike patients or any adult human female staff who are terrified on any occasion that recognising biological reality will result in a struggle session and/or denial of care and whose 'whole self' the trust very clearly does not give the tiniest shit about except as a resource for others to use.

The podcast is excellent yet also terrifying. Totalitarianism is right.

It all explains the difficulty recruiting staff, though.

I note that the trust I'm doing has pages about a scheme they run bringing nurses from overseas - they welcome them, set them up in a flat etc. Then they have ideological rightthink imposed when they're far from their families. It must be actually horrifying and how can they escape then? They think they've come for a new life but instead it's like a cult!

Presumably their immigration status will be tied to their NHS job so they can't speak up against the 2+2=5 totalitarianism, even when it compromises patient care.

Ok that is now extra creepy. The layers of this just seem to get weirder and weirder.

And supposedly it’s the Supreme Court that are the unreasonable ones. Good grief!

Those stats would be good in a newspaper article 22:1

@umbel
I can get started on Coventry and Warwick today so can take it off your hands.

Thanks. I'm on with Dudley Group now so that would really help.

which trust is this - good point about the press - I'll make a note!

Sorry 21:1

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Going down a bit of a rabbit hole with Stonewall - it's referenced in one place on the website that I can find. However, have found a video with an entire cabinet of 'awards' in it. Does anyone know if Stonewall gave out physical trophies and if so what they looked like?

I'll probably submit soon as I'm not getting anywhere fast and I know it's about how easy it is for patients / the public to find out.

It's a mental health trust.

I have a close relative with dementia.

I am feeling very sick at the idea that 'misgendering' aka correctly seeing someone's sex is considered a disciplinary offence. How do they treat patients who can't remember someone's pronouns. What about staff who are dealing with patients with dementia and gaslighting them by calling the mythical Pete 'she/her' because they have to or lose their job?

Thank goodness my relative doesn't live in the vicinity.

I'm actually having a little sob now at the thought of my very poorly relative trying to grapple with someone's fucking 'gender identity' and being 'told off' for not getting it.

What is wrong with the fucking world?

Checking social media channels for observation of the prescribed holy days - day of visibility etc is a good way to check if there’s likely to be a link. Think one of these falls on 31 March so not too far to scroll back