South London and Maudsley launches Anti-Racism Action Plan | News

Great work from our trust member, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trus, for taking an important step towards achieving their vision to lead anti-racism in mental health by 2026. This Anti-Racism Action Plan sets out the steps they will take to be a transparent, responsive, decent and equitable organisation that is a leader in fighting racism.

In common with all Trusts, structural racism affects both their work and their organisation, and there is a long way to go to become an actively anti-racist organisation. As they begin this journey, they want to be clear that anti-racism is active, and core to professional service delivery.

They want each and every person to receive outstanding treatment and support to enable recovery and lead a fulfilling life. To achieve this goal, fundamental change is needed to remove the conditions that hold systematic racism in place.

The action plan, which has been developed in partnership with staff, service users and carers and community leaders, builds on the anti-racism vision statement that was released in October 2022

The action plan will initially focus on five areas: workforce, service delivery, communication and engagement, research, and work with the Police.

This focus includes commitments to:

• Support the continued implementation of the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) in our service delivery
• Improve the representation of ethnically and culturally diverse staff in senior roles
• Host paid internships for postgraduate students and work experience placements for GCSE and T-level students from hard-to-reach backgrounds
• Organise ‘being an ally’ training for staff, establish a quarterly anti-racism newsletter, and embed anti-racism into staff appraisals
• Publish an ethnicity pay gap report
• Improve data collection to analyse service users by ethnicity
• Roll out Seni Lewis Training Programme for staff to understand how to manage challenging behaviour in a mental health context and avoid the use of restraint

This Anti-Racism Plan sets out the vision for members of all communities, with a particular focus on our Black communities, to feel valued, supported and heard.

The Trust will be collecting qualitative feedback from staff, service users, carers and communities to understand how it feels to work at the Trust or access mental health services, and then act upon what they say.

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