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Towards an Inclusive Future
Towards an Inclusive Future
During October, we published our equality, diversity and inclusion report: Towards an Inclusive Future, A look inside our community.
Led by Council Member and Intensivist, Aoife Abbey and a team of professionals, this report is focused on improving and embedding substantive and sustainable change to make the working lives of professionals from across the breath of the EDI landscape better.
Using an anonymous EDI census, the EDI group set out on collecting data from our community through a broad range of experiences - questions were optional and open ended so respondents felt comfortable with any information they shared. Using a third party organisation, Eventure, the results were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methodologies and further scrutinised by our EDI team.
This landmark publication is a summation of 18 months of work diving into our community to listen, learn and better understand those working within our profession and comprises the lived experiences of hundreds of healthcare professionals from all over the critical care community.
It highlights some of their real-life stories and negative experiences – conclusions from the personal experiences of 352 members of critical care teams.
This exercise is only the start of our mission and we thank these individuals who have helped us find a starting point to begin working on providing more education, better awareness and help influence sustainable change to encourage a better work force of tomorrow.
Whilst those who contributed to this report are just a fraction of our immense workforce, this work still represents the most expansive EDI project of its kind carried out in our multi-professional community to date. We believe each of the voices and their experiences shared not only ‘count’, but also represent a learning opportunity for both the Society and the teams we work with each day.
The key recommendations for the Society’s next steps are found with the people outlined in this report and we encourage you to read this document in its entirety to acknowledge that it may not represent the experiences of everyone but for some,this is very much their reality.
“I hope that we are all beginning to understand that the mere presence of diversity in a team, whether that is related to ethnic background, disability, sexuality, gender or anything else, does not automatically nurture inclusivity. We are prone to forgetting that it is inclusivity that is the goal and that getting there means listening, deliberate action and a commitment over time. Getting to know each other better and being open to considering how we can care for each other better can only strengthen our teams. Our patients deserve those strong and inclusive teams”
-Aoife Abbey, Intensive Care Society's EDI Chair
“Our workforce is built on diversity, uniting professionals from all walks of life, and it is by better understanding one another that we are able to build better relationships. Furthermore, it also enables us to apply this knowledge and respect to our patients who are members of the communities outlined in this report”
-Steve Mathieu, Intensive Care Society President
“This report holds a mirror up to the intensive care community and demonstrates that now more than ever, we need to understand the lived experiences of colleagues, friends and peers. They have the information we need to develop and implement resources, education and projects that make intensive care fit for the future We take this report as a positive first step in helping us to begin this work”
-Sandy Mather, Intensive Care Society Chief Executive
