A guest blog by Noor Nixon, UWE Bristol
Training resources to addressing the root cause of racism and discrimination in healthcare and education
As part of the Integrated Care Academy (ICA @ UWE Bristol) – the partnership created with the NHS, commercial, charity and independent sector partners across local and regional health and social care systems – the Inclusive Training within Practice Project is a multi-professional multi-integrated care system collaborative project funded by NHS England South West and led by UWE Bristol.
The challenge
Research and data indicate there are specific needs for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students on healthcare programmes in relation to racism, racial bias and/or discriminatory behaviour. The University Ethnicity Awarding Gaps and NHS Workforce Race Equality Standards are examples of widely published data that highlight racial disparities in healthcare and in education. Qualitative data from local research projects on the experiences of healthcare learners carried out by universities also reflect the racial disparities in the data.
Whilst there are efforts across organisations to address racism and discrimination with some offering local training, insights have highlighted the need for sustainable scalable solutions with consistency and clear alignment with national priorities and local organisation-level strategies and policies.
The solution
The project aims to improve the experiences and outcomes of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic learners on healthcare programmes and international staff working in healthcare by developing learning resources that address the root cause of racism and discrimination. Most learning resources are for the workforce enabling culture and behaviour change, and some resources are for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic learners and international staff to improve their understanding and awareness of racism and discrimination, empowering them to raise concerns and access support and to develop a sense of belonging.
Training and learning resources
Resources are designed with extensive research, insights and collaboration and are complementary. There are common golden threads and key themes running through all resources which deliver against existing national and local strategies and policies including the Safe Learning Environment Charter (SLEC) and NHS Workforce Educator Strategy.
Regional collaboration with 100 individuals from 16 organisations from Higher Education Institutions, FE Colleges and healthcare placement providers together with support from specialist learning designers with subject matter expertise, a regional stakeholder reference group and a diverse staff and student feedback panel have all contributed to the resource design.
ITP Project Resource launch event October 2024
This collaborative approach to addressing common shared challenges across multiple systems avoids duplication, supports the spread and adoption mindset and offers wholistic, complementary and sustainable and scalable solutions. To enable systemic change, some resources will be for the whole workforce, some for specific roles and some for healthcare practice education teams.
Resources will be in the form of self-led tools, interactive e-learning packages and trainer-led programmes and will begin to be published from October 2024, with all resources published by the end of November 2024, on the NHS Learning Hub which will be open source available to all healthcare and education providers. Organisations are asked to take a spread and adoption mindset to embed resources or adapt and extend existing training and learning offer.
Find out more about the project and resources:
• See the project summary for more information here
• If you support healthcare programmes, register or log in to the NHS Learning Hub and search for ‘Inclusive Training within Practice’. Resources begin to be published from October, and all resources will be published by the end of November
• Find out about the Integrated Care Academy at UWE Bristol here
If you can have questions about the project or resources, please email Noor.Nixon@uwe.ac.uk.