Equality, diversity and inclusion

The Nuffield Trust is committed to becoming an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory organisation, and to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion across all aspects of our work.

This includes ensuring our own working environment is safe, diverse, inclusive and fair – as well as looking at how our research, communication and overall operations can improve the lives of marginalised groups.

Why equality, diversity and inclusion is important in health and care

Health and care form part of a wider infrastructure in society that can reinforce racism and other forms of discrimination.

In the UK, most people believe that everyone should be able to access health care based on need, and it is one of the founding principles of the NHS. But there are large disparities in the health of different groups, with some groups unable to access the care they need or reporting poorer experiences and worse outcomes when they do receive care.

Health is a powerful lens through which to understand how discrimination affects different people, both in terms of the health care they receive and understanding how wider determinants such as housing, work or psychological trauma can affect the health of different groups.

Why equality, diversity and inclusion is important to the Nuffield Trust’s work

The Nuffield Trust’s mission is to provide evidence for better health care. In order to be effective, our work must acknowledge and understand the different views and needs that make up the whole. As a research organisation in the health sector we are conscious of our own role in perpetuating structural inequalities and are taking steps to expand and diversify the communities and organisations that we work with and learn from.

This includes adapting methods and project planning processes to better account for equity in how we conduct our work and improving our ability to reach and amplify the voices of the communities our work intends to benefit.

Why equality, diversity and inclusion is important to our working environment

In order to achieve our goals, we must acknowledge our role as individuals. Our attitudes and behaviour must foster a safe working environment that allows different voices to be heard. We must challenge ourselves to learn from others’ experiences and be able to hold ourselves, and our peers, accountable. We must also consider how our current staff make-up may limit our understanding and how we can bring in new voices to our work.

Our principles

The following principles are held by the organisation as a whole and all of the individuals within that organisation. The commitments made, and responsibility for delivering them, are held by the organisation as a whole, rather than any one individual or group.

• We value and promote diversity of all kinds, while recognising that multiple forms of discrimination can overlap.
• We all take ownership, setting clear priorities and taking tangible actions to achieve our goals.
• We challenge ourselves to continually learn and seek out opportunities for growth and change, particularly valuing those with lived experience.
• We will create a safe space, recognising that each of us is learning and will make honest mistakes, and will be thoughtful and non-judgemental when responding to others’ ideas and experiences.
• We will endeavour to evaluate how biases affect our ways of working across all aspects of the organisation – never using a lack of data as an excuse for reinforcing the status quo, and committing to outline a strategy or method to correct these biases.