Our commitment to diversity and inclusion
On the July 17 we celebrated Diversity and Inclusion in the Trust by holding an event at Education Academy Mile End event at which the Trust’s Diversity and Inclusion Positive Action Charter was launched.
The idea for the Charter came from the Chair of LGBTQ Network who suggested that, as an organisation, Barts Health needed to publically demonstrate its commitment to equality and diversity – and that a charter would be a good next step.
The Trust Board embraced the idea and tasked the Inclusion team with coordinating it’s development. A wide range of colleagues inputted their ideas for the charter via a range of engagement activities – key contributions came from the Trust’s Staff Diversity Networks, namely; The LGBTQ sub-group, BME sub-group and the BartsAbility sub-group as well as the site-based Equality and Inclusion forums and Staff Partnership Forum.
The charter sets out a number of important commitments to positive action that are designed to have lasting impact in creating Barts Health as an organisation where each colleague, patient and carer feels genuine included, heard and recognised.
Ian Peters, our Chairman launched the charter at the Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion event help on 17 July. Nearly one hundred multidisciplinary colleagues from a wide range of services participated in the event, which show-cased the achievements of our Staff Diversity Network, with presentations from our BME, BartsAbility, LGBTQ+ and Women’s subgroups.
Entertainment was provided by the Sir John Cass Red Coat Steel Band Sir John Cass's Foundation and Red Coat Church of England Secondary School and Sixth Form College and Anand Pancholi, a member of staff who provided music for the closing ceremony.
- Charles Rukwengye, Inclusion Practitioner