We are a signatory of the Race at Work Charter

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is pleased to announce that we have signed the Business in the Community (BITC) Race at Work Charter. This significant step demonstrates our commitment to promoting equality and addressing the disparities that Black, Asian, Mixed-Race and other ethnically diverse individuals face in the workplace.

Why this matters 

Ethnic minorities continue to face significant disparities in employment and career progression. The 2017 government-sponsored Race in the Workplace: The McGregor-Smith Review highlighted these ongoing challenges. By signing the Race at Work Charter, we are taking concrete actions to eliminate these barriers and ensure that our organisation is representative of British society today.

Our commitments and progress 

The Trust has already taken several steps towards the seven key actions within the charter, including:

• Appointment of executive sponsors
• Publicising our ethnicity data through annual reports
• Rolling out active bystander training
• Refreshing our kindness campaign to combat harassment and bullying

Our Diversity Inclusion Champions programme—where a trained diversity champion sits on every interview panel for posts at Band 8a and above—demonstrates our commitment to ensuring fairness in recruitment. There is a plan to expand this programme to include more positions in the Trust. The Trust is committed to working with the ENRICH network to implement positive actions through our recruitment process and to fully embed EDI objectives in leaders’ and managers’ performance reviews. 

The network chair, together with the network executive sponsor, is working through the Belonging Subgroup to integrate some of these actions into the Trust's initiatives and strategies. This will not only improve our efforts but also align them with the broader goals of the Trust, ensuring a more cohesive and impactful approach.

The Trust aims to make positive steps towards the remaining key actions, which include: 

• Ensuring equity, diversity, and inclusion is the responsibility of all leaders and managers
• Supporting career progression of ethnically diverse employees
• Supporting race inclusion allies in the workplace
• Including ethnically diverse-led businesses in supply chains

We look forward to sharing more about our progress against the commitments in the charter.