Staff networks - hear from the chairs

So my name is Lee Farnell. I’m a recruitment supervisor for UHB, and I’m also the co-chair of the LGBT+ staff network.

It’s important that we have an LGBT staff network because there are so many people in the world now who are LGBT+ and plenty working within the healthcare sector and particularly UHB and their voices need to be heard.

When it comes to healthcare no-one can tell you better about yourself than you, and there are specific needs that certain members of our community need, and that’s why we need those voices – to make sure that we’re listened to, but also to make sure that both staff and patients who are LGBT are safe, are protected and are happy with the work environment that they’re in.

So some of the actions that the network has taken very recently are the push on the rainbow badges, there was a big roll out across the NHS promoting LGBT+ members of staff and promotion around their inclusion and their importance, and the rainbow badge was the signifier for that. We were lucky enough to get involved and have a lot of staff members sign up to show their support.

It showed that they are happy to provide and speak up for LGBT staff if they’re ever in a situation where they may be discriminated against, or situations where they may feel unwelcome, so it’s great to know that so many staff who both are LGBT and not support those people who need it.

Another thing that we had a really big push on very recently is the use of pronouns within the Trust. So we as a network decided that we were going to trial putting our pronouns on our email signatures, and this has caused a lot of conversation around their need and their requirement, but it’s all been positive.

I think it’s important for new starters to get involved in the network pretty on, especially when they first join, so they know what we’re about. This doesn’t just apply for LGBT members of staff, this can be allies as well, it’s really important that all the voices are heard in the room, but if there’s any issues, then we can discuss it and see if we can come to a solution around it – but the network’s there for so many reasons, it’s not just a place where new staff can get to know other members of staff who aren’t necessarily within their department, but if any new members of staff have got any queries or questions or any issues, we’re there to support them and we can point them in the right direction to get the help and support that they need, and I think that’s really important for them.

So I would encourage all new starters to get in touch with us as network chairs or even the inclusion team to, you know, get any support or help they might need.

So my name is Bev Baker, I’m Matron for gastroenterology and I’m also co-chair for the BAME network.

I think it’s really important to have a BAME staff network because there are big differences between BAME staff and non-BAME staff so our white colleagues and I think that we need to be able to listen to the lived experiences and understand what BAME staff may face.

Not everybody’s going to face discrimination, not everybody’s going to face racism, but you know we are a different group of staff and I think it’s good to be able to acknowledge that and to be able to explore anything that we need to do to make a better experience for staff.

I think it’s really important to have staff networks in general, because staff need somewhere to go that they can speak to, that they can feel they can confide in people, I think it’s important for us to be able to acknowledge and recognise anything that interrupts their daily working life. And I think it’s important for their health and wellbeing and also for the patient’s experience, it’s not just about staff, it’s about how we support staff to manage diverse patients as well.<

We do conferences every year, and I think that’s really, really good to be able to educate and understand the differences that may be culturally, you know, different with staff and patients and how we can manage them better, and how we can celebrate the cultures. Sometimes we are very narrow-minded about how other people live and how their experiences impact on their working life. So I think it’s really important that we educate ourselves and we talk about the history of the cultures and everything else, so it’s important that we do that.

I’d like new starters to get engaged, I’d like them to feel that they were welcome to our network meetings, I’d like them to come and participate and share their lived experiences. I think it’s really important that we give them that avenue, you know, it is a network that is welcoming and we are confidential, if there’s anything that they need we’re here to hear them. You know we have black history month, conferences, we have many different staff engagements, and I think it would be wonderful if we could get the new starters involved and then they can bring someone along and then we can get a stronger cohort of staff.

My name is Paul Barker. I work in the contracts department, which is part of the finance team over at Regent court. Just as - if not more importantly - I'm co-chair of the neurodiversity staff network.

It's very important to have a neurodiversity network to support staff, who would identify as having a neurodiverse condition to enable them to function well, in their day to day lives, whether that be on a personal, pastoral or professional level. We also would want to support all staff in delivering the best in care, so that when they encounter issues with patients or visitors that relate to neurodiversity, that they are well equipped and well placed to respond to those.

Your diversity network has achieved a lot around raising the profile of neurodiversity within the Trust. For example, we recently spoke to an audience of HR and occupational health professionals to help them develop and enhance their accommodation of neurodiverse staff, and also applicants to the Trust in terms of informing policy around the recruitment process.

As a network, it's very important that the voices of staff who are neurodiverse are heard in a loud and clear way, which in turn influences policy across the Trust in developing and enhancing best practice in care.

We are inviting all new starters to contact the network, to go into our meetings to email us to find out more about the network. Because in all walks of life, it's likely that one of every six people you encounter will have some form of neurodiverse condition, which quite often may be undiagnosed or undetected.

Hi, I'm Jane O'Connor, I chair the network for staff with disabilities and long term conditions. I think it's vital that we have the network group so that all of our staff can get the best information to help them stay in work for as long as possible, or if they're a new starter, when they start their working life in their career with the Trust, we can guide them to ensure that they have everything in place that they need, including opening up those conversations to share any information that they may not yet have done with their immediate line managers.

The work that we do includes things like organising our changing places toilet from start to scratch. So we worked with estates with that work group, with the Trust in whole and the UHB charity trust, who funded it for us to ensure that we have really first class facilities for patients, visitors and staff. And we also work closely with HR on policies and procedures that will enable these staff to flourish in their work life within UHB.

We have a great peer to peer support network that can help staff who are new starters, joining the trust, and even support the staff who have been here for a very long time, but may have acquired a disability or a long term condition on their career pathway.

I want as many people as possible to feel comfortable and come and join us within the staff network. That can be if you have a disability that is very obvious for people to see, or a disability that no one can see and may not even recognise that you have. And you may not even feel that this impacts on your own working life. But you can help others, you know, through our peer to peer network through supporting others who have the same condition as you. And together we can inform the Trust of how best to support our staff, all of our staff, to stay working in the wonderful UHB.

I'd love the new starters to come and join us. Whether that be as a person who you feel might need that little bit of support in your working life or as an ally, who feels that they have something that they can share to support others and just learn a little bit more, you know, you may be a line manager who needs to, to know how do you support your staff if they have a disability or a long term condition? How do you help them? How do you get the best from everyone? So come and join us.

My name is Sally Lawson, and I work really closely with the women's network, it's really important for us to have a women's network because although we have come a really long way, there is still a lot of work to do to make sure that female staff have equal access to opportunities, both within the Trust and outside of the Trust as well.

We know that there are still areas where females are underrepresented in both the fields of science and medicine and we're doing a lot of work in the Trust to be able to make sure that all staff have equal access to opportunities.

The women's network has done a lot since it was created, and that includes working really closely with the Trust to develop some guidelines to support staff through menopause. So the guidelines are there for managers, and for staff to be able to have those conversations and access and support, if women are going through the menopause. We've also done a lot of work to support women in areas such as domestic abuse, and we're also working really, really closely with women to increase our offer for health and wellbeing as well as our mental health support as well.

So the women's network is available for all staff, not just our staff who identify as female. And we really encourage people to get involved in the work that we do. We always celebrate International Women's Day, we have a conference or an event. And we celebrate other occasions throughout the year as well.

We encourage all new starters to get involved in the women's network, come and join us at our monthly meetings and get involved in the initiatives and the work that we do, including the conferences and the events that we hold.

We're really keen to hear your stories and hear your experiences. We've got a lot more work to do. Looking at the progression, the career progression of our female staff throughout the bands and the professional team in the trust. And we're really keen to hear from you so that we can work together on those.

(Pat) Hi, my name is Pat. I'm one of two carer coordinators that work at the Trust.

(Ali) My name is Ali and I'm one of the carer coordinators at the Trust. I think it's really important that we have a carer staff network because certainly recently the amount of staff who were caring for people outside of their working responsibility has increased, think it's about one in five staff members now have caring responsibilities outside of work, so just really important that we get to hear about those of you who are caring for people.

(Pat) Quite often, staff don't even realise they're carers, but they're trying to juggle work and care. So it's just somewhere so they can actually get a little bit of support and help for what might be going on outside of work for them.

(Ali) Some of the actions that their carers staff network has taken has been to set up lovely meetings, and we meet once a month to get to know each other and build community. And as a result of that, there is a little WhatsApp group, so just a great place to check in and say how you're doing or how somebody else might be doing, share little hints and tips as well. And just again, build that community of people that are having similar experiences outside of work.

(Pat) So if you're a new starter at the Trust, it was very nice if you could let yourself be known to one of the carer coordinators, or come and join in our carer networks and see how we can help you.

(Ali) I'd really like to hear from you. If you have caring responsibilities or that you might know somebody that does, and just, we'd love to get to know you and start to build a relationship and work together and build a real community of people that are looking after people.