Message from the President

BAPIO-BIHR CONFERENCE DIGNITY@WORK STANDARDS

From the President

'I am delighted that we are producing another constructive piece of work to improve the work environment and organisational culture that leads in turn to efficient and safe care. We know the implementation of the standards will require genuine commitment from all of you. '

In 2021, BAPIO celebrated its silver jubilee and we are proud to have contributed to excellence in patient care, supported our members in being inspirational leaders as well as creating a supportive environment for health and wellbeing. Throughout our history we have stood for our values of equality, diversity and inclusion of not only black and minority ethnic professionals but for all groups who have faced differential outcomes in society. Our membership are accessible to all who wish to be part of the mission. We have always fostered collaborative relationships with the NHS, Medical Royal Colleges, academic partners and all voluntary organisations such as Medical Womens Federation. We formed the Alliance for Equality in Healthcare Professions in 2020, with over 50 voluntary healthcare organisations. With our regional chapters, forums, arms-length bodies we support excellence in education, leadership, research and publication in science and healthcare policy across the UK and globally.

Listening to our members, we are acutely aware of the widespread issue of structural inequalities, bias and discrimination that exists in society. The issue of bullying and harassment faced by many healthcare staff stems from such inequalities, which have been compounded during the last 2 years of the pandemic. We are concerned that although all the organisations have policies for dignity at work, most of the time it stays on paper, and a large proportion of staff suffer incivility in silence and fear. A recent survey conducted by BAPIO showed the scale of bullying and harassment to be much larger in staff with certain protected characteristics (based on their gender, race, ethnicity, religion and disability). Such toxic workplaces have a significant negative impact on the productivity, health of staff, and an estimated cost to the UK economy of up to £14 billion per year.

It is interesting that there are no nationally accepted standards to evaluate the efficacy of policies for dignity at work. Therefore we decided to review the literature and work on developing consensus standards for dignity at work. Following our experience of working with all the stakeholders while we developed the “Bridging the Gap” report, we engaged with the members of the Alliance and relevant stakeholders to this conference to build consensus for Dignity@Work Standards.

I am grateful to our team at the BAPIO Institute for Health Research (BIHR), very efficiently led by Prof Indranil Chakravorty for the incredible hard work they have put in to develop the draft standards. Thanks also to Dr. Cherian George, who has been a star organiser of the conference. I am delighted that we are producing another constructive piece of work to improve the work environment and organisational culture that leads in turn to efficient and safe care. We know the implementation of the standards will require commitment from all of you.

Ramesh Mehta OBE Jan 2022