Tackling racism in the workplace
The College is set to publish new guidance for mental health employers to tackle racism in the workplace – and it will be backed by a big campaign.
Strong evidence shows that racism remains a problem at organisations employing psychiatrists across the UK.
Surveys by the RCPsych, the British Medical Association, the NHS and others since 2020 have highlighted the scale of the problem:
- Six in ten psychiatrists from a minoritised ethnic background experienced racism in the workplace. (RCPsych survey 2020)
- Thousands of NHS staff from a minoritised ethnic background suffered harassment, bullying or abuse at work. (NHS survey, 2020)
- The NHS is ‘riddled with racism’ against ethnic minority doctors. (BMA survey, 2022)
The College promised to act in our Equality Action Plan and next month we will be publishing important new guidance and a maturity matrix to help employers track their progress, as well as launching a big campaign called Act Against Racism.
We will be calling on leadership teams in all employer organisations across the UK to adopt our new guidance, as well as the 15 actions that we say will help to transform workplaces for staff from minoritised ethnic backgrounds.
The 15 actions break down into six domains which we believe will help employers tackle racism at a strategic and systemic level, wherever they are in the UK.
After the guidance is launched next month we will be:
- writing to leadership teams to introduce the guidance and the 15 actions
- creating an Act Against Racism hub on our website and promoting the guidance across our social media channels
- promoting new videos about why the guidance is vital and why the actions are needed
- developing podcasts to highlight the issues and to demonstrate the guidance is being adopted, including testimony from early adopters
- calling on you, our members, to help spread the word.
Find out more next month, when the guidance and campaign will be launched at this year's RCPsych International Congress.