FFF are committed to supporting Diversity & Inclusion, recognising that it is an important aspect in ensuring finance teams identify, nurture and support talented individuals from all backgrounds. A key aspect of the diversity workstream is to support and enhance the careers of finance colleagues with "protected characteristics", as defined by the Equality Act 2010. Its focus will be on helping those colleagues to achieve their potential and ensuring that finance leaders today and in the future are representative of the diverse workforce within NHS finance. This will have real tangible benefits for individuals and organisations and will be a huge contributor to improving the quality of patient care.
The work programme for Diversity will focus on four main objectives:
- Education – raising awareness of the issue, whilst working with organisations to share best practice and learning between themselves, to help identify practical solutions for others.
- Influence & Policy – those at the top of organisations and in positions of influence need to challenge the status quo and highlight the benefits of a diverse workforce. Introducing new and flexible ways of working could be a small change with a big impact.
- Sponsorship – senior leaders from all backgrounds identifying other talented staff and those with a clear potential, and supporting them in their careers.
- Narrative – ensuring consistency of diversity messaging across organisations to ensure everyone is working towards the same goal.
The taskforce has launched the narrative referred to in the last bullet point above. Driving Value Through Difference can be downloaded from the link on the right-hand side of this page. We have produced this because the growing body of research on D&I shows that well-managed, diverse teams provide better care for patients, better management of resources, are more innovative and make better decisions.
