Why it's important to feel included

(Person 1) A time that I felt excluded was from a conversation with younger people, and I didn’t understand the language and the jargon. It made me feel silly and not part of a team.

(Person 2) I remember a time when I felt excluded. That was when all my friends started and joined the WhatsApp group and I was left out of that. I remember feeling really quite frustrated and annoyed with them for leaving me out of that.

(Person 3) I remember I was excluded from a lot of discussions around career opportunities and progress reviews when I was at university, and it made me feel very humiliated, and it made me question whether I was not good enough for what I was setting out to do.

(Person 4) I recall a time recently whereby with a group of four friends, and they’ve known each other for other 35 years, and it was coming up to her 35th birthday and we had a situation whereby I was then no longer part of that group even though we had been friends for quite a while. I felt very hurt, upset, I felt betrayed as well.

(Person 5) I can remember a previous place of work where they had certain friend groups and I was excluded from those friends groups. They didn’t acknowledge me in the morning or at the end of the day, they didn’t ask me to go for coffee or for lunch with them, and it made me feel quite upset.

Hi my name is Dr Rifat Rashid I am a respiratory consultant, but I’m also the site responsible clinician over at Heartlands Hospital, which basically means I’ve been in charge of leading the pandemic and leading Heartlands Hospital through the pandemic over the last 18 months.

I think it’s really important to include inclusion in the Trust’s induction, because it’s such an important conversation, and it’s a conversation we should have on day one. Also this Trust is all about its people, and by virtue of the fact that inclusion is in day one it sets the scene for what you should expect when you come and join the Trust in terms of what we are all about, also how you will be involved in shaping the future of the Trust – so I think it’s really important that we start off the way we mean to continue.

I think UHB is a very inclusive organisation and the fact that I am here and have been in the Trust for the last 10 years is testament to that fact and I think actually anyone that comes into the Trust, you only need to take a few minutes to look around to understand how true that statement is. Obviously everything is different for others, but what I can say is that this Trust is definitely dedicated to making sure that we are inclusive, that we are promoting equality and diversity – in fact, the CEO is very committed to making sure that inclusion and equality is very high up on the Trust agenda.

So, he chairs the fairness taskforce, and they are committed to making sure that we have multiple opportunities where we can listen to the lived experiences of all of our staff and also, actually, which is really important I think for me personally is that there are lots of ventures to try and understand the community that we serve.

So I think actually if we are in the heart of the community, which the Trust is, all of the different hospitals very much in the heart of the communities, it’s really important if we’re going to serve that community that we understand all of the diversity and the richness that is within those communities – so we’ve got lots of projects that are in-reaching to the community as well as making sure that all of our staff groups are well represented.

And, as a person working within the Trust, I make it my priority and my duty to make sure the people I work with whether they’re staff or colleagues or managers or leaders, whatever field that they work in, that I make sure I make them included, because that’s what I expect back. So for me, I think it’s really important. What I would say as well is, first of all – bring you. Bring everything that’s wonderful about you. Bring everything that’s unique about you. Come with an open mind, be inquisitive, have a look around, there’s loads of opportunities where you can get involved whether it’s a local level or a higher level, one of the things the Trust is very keen on is making sure that the inclusion and diversity is replicated all the way through the Trust right up to the senior positions. So if you’ve got an issue or you’ve got something you want to talk about, bring it to the table, let’s have a conversation about it.

And, if you’re in a senior position, then use your voice, make it heard, and represent your teams and your people and actually at the end of this, as I’ve said, this is about making it a better working environment for us which in turn is better for you, for me, the organisation and most importantly it’s better for the patients.

Meet Paul Ina.

Paul Ina is a man-woman-Hindu-Jew-Christian-Muslim pregnant breastfeeding gay bisexual pansexual asexual wheelchair using married civilly partnered unmarried black white asian polish English Swahili gender-reassigning atheist Welshman – with a skin condition.

Paul Ina is also a valued and welcome employee of our company, and we believe in equality, diversity and inclusion of everyone in every way we can think of.

It is illegal in Britain to discriminate on the grounds of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race or gender reassignment.

But discrimination comes in many forms.

There’s direct discrimination – Paul Ina doesn’t get promoted because she’s older or her boss thinks it might be a problem for other people that she’s older.

But there’s also indirect discrimination – where a policy applies to everyone but has a disproportionate impact on some people. For instance, if a job ad specifies the applicant should be clean shaven, it indirectly discriminates against Paul Ina because his belief doesn’t allow him to shave.

Then there’s associative discrimination – discriminating against someone who’s associated with the protected group. So if Paul Ina’s disabled father needs special care, the company can’t discriminate against Paul Ina because she needs to take time off to care for her father.

Finally, there’s perception discrimination. So if Paul Ina dresses and acts in a way that makes people think she’s gay, even though she’s not, she can’t be discriminated against – not for being gay and not for not being gay.

Discrimination sometimes takes the form of harassment or bullying. These can include threats, jokes, gestures, aggressive physical behaviour as well as repeated behaviour a person has previously objected to.

Under no circumstances will the company tolerate harassment or bullying. Equality legislation also applies to pay, benefits and training opportunities. So if Paul Ina, a gender reassigning bloke from Bolton, does exactly the same job as Paul Ina, an Essex girl who owns a llama, they should be paid the same, get the same benefits and access to the same training.

We take equality and diversity very seriously, not just because we have to, but because we believe in it.