Race equality and equality roundtable discussions

The College has hosted a series of four roundtable discussions to talk about race equality and equality for the College to support its staff, members and trainees as well as mental health services, patients, carers and the wider system of mental health care.

The roundtables were structured so that an introduction to the aims of the equality taskforce was given, and broad questions were offered to enable discussion and for people to propose their ideas, solutions and concerns. 

Panellists were chosen from diverse groups representing College staff and its members, as well as representatives from national charities and individuals with expertise in reducing inequalities. Patient and carer representatives were also invited as panellists.

All panellists were offered a summary of previous recommendations generated from reports on a range of sources relating to racism and discrimination.

All roundtable meetings were held virtually using Zoom and discussions were fully transcribed for analysis at a later date.

The virtual roundtable meetings were held as open sessions so that any staff, members, patients or carers who wanted to view the discussions were able to watch. The College also offered access to others to register to attend the roundtables and facilitated their contributions.

The details of each of the roundtables are shown in the table below:

Date Roundtable topic Chair Number of panellists Number of attendees
18/09/2020 Race Equality in the College Dr Rajesh Mohan 17 88
24/09/2020 Race Equality in Mental Health Services  Dr Lade Smith 16 133
01/10/2020 Equality and Equity in the College  Dr Maire Cooney 18 77
07/10/2020 Equality and Equity in Mental Health Services Dr Beena Rajkumar & Dr Ruth Reed  19 90