The last time Equality Here, Now checked the performance of the NHS in Scotland as an employer in delivering equality for disabled people was in 2024.
The research carried out then found :
In general, most NHS Boards do not know where they are starting from on the journey towards a discrimination-free workforce, with the extent of their knowledge of their current workforce in terms of their disability status being seriously compromised. On average, 50% of the NHS Scotland workforce is unknown in terms of disability status, with only 5 of the 22 Boards having less than 10% of their workforce being unknown [see Appendix A]. Alongside this, there is the national average of 1.49% of the NHS Scotland workforce positively identifying as disabled, with just 2 Boards revealing a workforce profile with over 5% of employees identifying as disabled.
Given the lack of sharp, precise detail around the workforce profile, this inevitably leaves NHS Boards in a weak position from which to start any work aimed at achieving changes in the workforce profile and increasing the percentage of the workforce identifying as disabled.
Another major factor in NHS Boards being unable to start real work aimed at eliminating discrimination from their systems, practices and cultures, is that they have published no evidence that they are gathering and using data which evidences the range of disabilities which are represented/under-represented in their workforce. By treating disabled people as a homogenous mass in their data gathering, NHS Boards are placing a very real barrier in their own way and which prevents them from producing informed actions plans to eliminate discrimination in the employment of the full spectrum of disabled people.
As well as lacking clarity around the detailed profile of their current workforce and thus being uncertain about where they are, Boards lack consistency and clarity around what their workforce should look like – where they need to be - once they change systems, cultures and practices to make it discrimination-free. Some, such as NHS Ayrshire & Arran, offer no benchmark against which to gauge how far off the current workforce profile is from being discrimination-free. Some Boards, such as NHS Lothian, cite government data from 2019 which reveals 21.1% of the population served by the Board identifies as disabled. NHS Lothian’s report, other than mentioning the figure, contains no further references to how the gap between their current workforce profile – 2.08% of employees identifying as disabled – and the population level of 21.1% identifying as disabled, could or should be closed or by when. NHS Borders cites the Census from England and Wales of 17% of the population identifying as disabled but fails to develop any learning or understanding of the gap between that and the Board’s workforce profile – 0.91% identifying as disabled – or offering any actions which show how the gap could be closed and by when. In general, the reports published by NHS Boards reveal that as well as most not knowing where their workforce is in relation to the employment of disabled people, none of the Boards have constructed an optimum, discrimination-free workforce profile which is guiding such actions plans as there are on eliminating discrimination.
In July 2013, research using workforce data published by NHS Boards then showed that NHS Scotland was reporting that 0.86% of the workforce identified as disabled and 51.25% of employees did not reveal their disability status. The equivalent figures being reported in 2024 [see Appendix A] shows 1.41% of NHS Scotland employees identifying as disabled and 50.05% choosing not to reveal their disability status.
In over a decade of work aimed at eliminating disability discrimination as an employer, NHS Scotland has barely moved the dial in the proportion of its workforce identifying as disabled people, while during the same time it has been equally unable to shift the dial in persuading 50% of their workforce to reveal their disability status. Alongside this, Scottish government is reporting that 15.40% of its workforce identifies as disabled, while citing a benchmark of 20.7% of the adult population in Scotland identifying as disabled. The Equality and Human Rights Commission [EHRC] reports, as an employer, that 20% of the workforce identifies as disabled and uses as a benchmark that 13% of the UK’s adult population identifies as disabled.
Since the arrival of the Equality Act in 2010, the NHS in Scotland has failed to establish, clearly and in appropriate detail, where it was/is now on delivering disability equality as an employer, and establishing precise contours around just how much and where is the disability discrimination in each Board that needs to be eliminated. During the years since 2010, NHS Scotland has tried to climb on various bandwagons [Disability Confident[1] being a common one] which might take them towards where they think they want to be. But unlike most travellers, the NHS in Scotland has no clear idea of what the destination is of whichever bandwagon it chooses to board, or what the changes would look like when they arrive at their new their workforce profile. None of the NHS Boards have constructed a detailed profile of what their workforce would look like, the final destination of their journey, when it will be discrimination-free for disabled people.
For over a decade now, the NHS in Scotland has created and sustained a mirage of activity around the elimination of disability discrimination. The data on employees they are required to gather and publish shows that in fact NHS Scotland are pretty much still dithering at the start of the journey, trapped in indecision or apathy, while they watch employers such as Scottish government and the EHRC disappear out of sight on the far horizon as they publish clear evidence of making measurable progress and getting closer to the goal of being discrimination-free workplaces in which disabled people can thrive.
[1] Top Disability Confident members ‘do no better on jobs than non-members’
Equality Here, Now has researched the performance of the NHS in Scotland as an employer of disabled people over a number of years, and the journey from then until now can be uncovered in the research reports published in 2021, 2019, 2017, 2015, and 2013.