We make it a priority to actively promote equality, diversity, and inclusion in everything that we do whether for our staff or the communities we commission healthcare services for.
Under the Equality Act 2010, we have a number of statutory responsibilities that we must deliver. You can read more about our responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010, here.
Our diversity and inclusion objectives
The organisation has a set of diversity and inclusion priorities which we have designed to be reviewed when we become an Integrated Commissioning Board. These priorities are:
- Develop and engaged with our internal networks to ensure that they have a voice within the organisation and build a truly inclusive environment for everyone.
- Develop and implement inclusive development and educational offer for all people in the organisation to ensure fair and equitable access and opportunity.
- Pilot and evaluate a fully inclusive recruitment model over overhaul our internal and external processes to remove bias and improve diversity.
- Building on Freedom To Speak Up and cultural change, introduce Civility and Respect policy and approach.
- Collaborate with our system partners to design and deliver a set of inclusive interventions to address inequality for our workforce, our population and our communities.
Support to our colleagues
So that we commission health care services that truly meet the needs of our local communities and the population of Kent and Medway. We know the diversity of our workforce must be representative of the county. We haven’t fully achieved that yet, but we are working hard to make the organisation a place where staff can bring their whole selves to work and feel supported.
To do this, we have set up staff network groups to offer our most under-represented workforce members safe spaces where they can have their voices heard and seek support and feel empowered amongst their peers. Each of these networks is championed by a sponsor from our Executive Team so the concerns, issues and achievements that each group raise are heard and responded to by our most senior staff members.
The organisation has four very active staff representative groups:
- BAME network
- LGBT+ Network
- Disabilities and Long-Term Conditions Network
- Women’s Network.
If you already work for us or will soon be joining, and are interested in joining a network that represents you, please email kmicb.od@nhs.net.
You can find our most recent Gender Pay Gap report here.