Birmingham’s Progress in the NIHR Race Equality Pilot

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) have developed a Race Equality Framework for health research organisations to assess their racial competence in health research. The framework was developed by the NIHR Race Equality Public Action Group (REPAG) following public consultations attended by people of Black, African, Asian and Caribbean heritage.

The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, in partnership with the University of Birmingham, has been one of sixteen organisations taking part in piloting the framework before a wider roll-out later this year.

The pilot aims to support the NIHR’s work in addressing health inequities in research by delivering research that is representative of the whole population in order to meet the needs of the wider population.

To initiate this piece of work,  Birmingham first garnered support at organisational executive level in order to facilitate lasting and meaningful change. Tim Jones, Chief Innovation Officer at UHB quoted…

“We are committed to reducing health inequalities across the population we serve; the pilot of the Race Equality Framework will support the Trust and University leadership teams in identifying areas for further focus to achieve the greatest impact we can in this critical area.”

A Self-Assessment Oversight Team (SAOT) was set up, chaired by Byron Batten, Head of Inclusion at UHB, to oversee the implementation of the pilot project in Birmingham. The team has a broad cultural mix with varied skill-sets (clinical, research, academia, and management), patient/public representatives from Black, African, Asian and Caribbean heritage groups, and an expert independent advisor in equity from BRAP.

The framework was put into practice, and used to gather evidence via a mixture of online surveys, policy reviews and discussion groups. The evidence gathering stage helped identify key areas where we can produce the most impactful change, and it remains an ongoing piece of work to further interrogate our current position.

All pilot partners demonstrated their progress by producing a case study on one of the themes identified by the framework. Birmingham’s area of focus was Education and Training, which was a common theme identified across all the framework domains.

The case study was co-developed in collaboration with our patient partners, who also were instrumental in the evidence gathering. An action plan has been co-developed, which will help focus Birmingham’s ongoing efforts to address change in Race Equality by improving our education and training offer. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Reviewing and conducting a gap analysis of current training and development on offer, with patients, public and staff
• Working with patients, public and staff to co-develop a new training offer and to ensure there is a process of review/evaluation once deployed
• In consultation with patients, staff networks and external advisors, develop the communications and engagement plan for the “revised” training/development offer

Birmingham is proud to be part of the pilot project which has given us the opportunity to spend time to deeply understand racial equity/equality and what strategies need to be put in place for meaningful change. We endeavour to continue to work with our patient partners to ensure we deliver on our objectives.

NIHR website for more information about the rollout.