Calling all health and adult social care professionals working in England!

The CQC has commissioned the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), in partnership with IFF Research, to undertake research to understand how the CQC can effectively look at workforce inequalities in their regulation of services in the health and adult social care sector (HASC). This research will help CQC better understand what can tackle workplace inequalities most effectively and identify how, as a regulator, CQC can best help.

By ‘workforce inequalities’, we mean differences in how employees with certain characteristics or from non-dominant cultures are treated while at work. This can include things like discrimination or racism, bullying or harassment, not being fairly considered for promotion, being unfairly given different tasks from others, or not being able to get issues like these recognised, or fairly resolved when they arise.

The research explores the lived experiences of inequality and discrimination of those working in health and adult social care organisations such as hospitals, care homes, in-home care, GPs, dentists, mental health and ambulance services. It also aims to understand how providers in the HASC sector can most effectively recognise and identify where workforce inequalities and discrimination exist, and what can be done to tackle and address these. Our research will help CQC understand what it can do as a regulator to best support providers in making necessary changes to improve workplace equality, which we know makes a difference to the quality-of-care people who use services receive.

The survey we are conducting will provide an evidence base of how workforce inequalities are experienced (and/or observed) by people working in the health and social care sector, allowing us to understand the prevalence and types of workforce inequalities. It will also create an evidence base of interventions that are effective in reducing and addressing these workforce inequalities.

Please share this survey link: https://online1.snapsurveys.com/employeevoicesurvey with your networks of health and adult social care professionals working in England to participate. They can take this survey whether or not they have had a personal experience of workforce inequalities.

If you have any questions related to the survey, please contact claudia.plowdenroberts@employment-studies.co.uk. Alternatively, please contact yen.truong@cqc.org.uk if you have any questions on the research.

Survey link here