Councillor John Thomas, Maia Thomas and Rehan Uddin.

The notes of the meeting held by the panel on 3 August 2021 were agreed as a correct record.

The CCG representatives gave a presentation on the outcomes and recommendations made in the Nous report. The work to inform the report was undertaken in September 2020-April 2021 by NHS and Local Authority organisations in Devon and sought to review the experiences of the diverse communities and staff across Devon, including Torbay.

The report made 34 recommendations and these will inform the equality, diversity and inclusion strategy for the new Integrated Care System (ICS).

In relation to staff feedback the main themes of the report were:

·         Concerns from BAME staff about recruitment, progression and ethnic diversity in their organisation

·         Staff experiences of racism, which though rare do occur and are not always dealt with effectively by their organisation

·         Staff view that equality and diversity is not a priority for their organisation

·         Staff concerns about a lack of BAME staff networks and their sustainability.

In relation to community feedback the main themes of the report were:

·         Inadequate interpretation and translation support which causes barriers

·         Perceived lack of cultural competence among providers

·         Concerns about mental health and isolation due to challenges in accessing services.

In essence the 34 recommendations focus on:

·         Developing community reference group/s to represent the views of diverse communities across Devon

·         Supporting the development of the system BAME staff network   

·         Co-designing and delivering cultural awareness training for staff in all organisations across the ICS

·         Co-designing services including translation and interpretation 

·         Overhauling recruitment and progression to build a more diverse workforce that represents local ethnic minority communities across the ICS in Devon

·         Building stronger relationships with communities to ensure health services meet the needs of people from ethnic minority communities  

The CCG explained that progress is already being made by the ICS on the issues identified in the report by:

·         Increasing support and collaboration with the BAME staff network

·         Working to ensure Devon is a welcoming place to work for international nurses and medics

·         Working to widen BAME representation via the voluntary and community sector

·         Ensuring the recruitment process for ICS Devon chair is undertaken with representation from diverse communities

·         Using Nous findings to inform the Covid vaccination outreach programme approach.

The CCG representatives gave an overview of the organisation and made the following points in relation to the key question:

·         CCG employs around 450 staff, around 100 are based in Torbay (Pomona House)

·         BAME staff make up approximately 2.2% of the CCG’s staff population

·         Although unacceptably low, the number of ethnic minority staff within the CCG has been increasing over the past few years. For example, some departments in the organisation are improving more quickly (Comms, HR and IT is currently at 5.4%)

·         There is a CCG Objective (measured at Board level) to move this closer to the Devon average of 6.4%

·         CCG has been overseeing the vaccination programme. Through the outreach of this work, they are starting to build strong links with ethnic minority communities. Examples include: 

Panel members and others then asked a series of questions and the main points in relation to the responses from the CCG are detailed below:

·         The ICS network will provide greater opportunities for staff, especially BAME staff to develop and gather greater experience and promotion across the network of ICS organisations

·         Organisations in the ICS needed to see the appraisal process as less of a tick box exercise and more of an opportunity to develop staff, especially BAME staff

·         More reverse mentoring is required across the ICS organisations to ensure BAME staff have the opportunities to grow and that senior leaders understand the issues facing their BAME staff

·         More is required to be done to attract BAME people to work in Devon and that one of the key barriers is appropriate and affordable accommodation

·         Tensions were identified between international recruitment of staff and de-skilling the workforce in their country of origin. However, more could be done to build partnerships with other countries to develop workforces that are beneficial to both countries

·         Although international recruitment is helpful, there is still a huge untapped potential workforce from the UK, especially from a BAME background that could be utilised

·         Data collection on racism in the NHS could be better and is stopping it from understanding the issues facing BAME staff and communities. One response to this would be peer challenge on equality and diversity issues from organisations within the ICS

·         That whilst there are pockets of good practice across Devon, more needs to be done to tackle the disproportionate impact of mental health on BAME communities as a result of the Covid pandemic. This requires greater investment in cultural sensitivity training for key  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.