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A year of diversity and inclusion at The King’s Fund

As the year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on The King’s Fund’s diversity and inclusion journey in 2022.

We continue to work on making the Fund a place that reflects the wider world around us, a place where differences are embraced and celebrated, where all people can thrive, where people are heard and feel safe to express themselves, and where everyone is able to bring as much of their authentic selves as they choose to work. At the same time, we want to ensure that the Fund’s work improves and enriches the future of health and care by featuring and including individuals from diverse range of backgrounds.

But what does that actually look like in practice? It’s a question I get asked all the time, so I’ve pulled out some highlights of our diversity and inclusion year below, with one caveat: there’s a lot more to our story as a Fund than just this. In fact, if I were to detail all the diversity and inclusion actions and initiatives across the year this would be more of a novel than a blog. Every week at The Fund there is some action in support of our diversity and inclusion ambitions – staff network groups meeting, peers coming together to focus on supporting the wellbeing of those involved in doing the work, discussions in teams about how we make our work more diverse or inclusive, educational posts on Yammer (our internal intranet), conversations highlighting inequities and how we can step forward as allies to solve them. The work is ongoing because true inclusion takes constant effort.

And with the caveat out of the way, I am excited to share with you for the first time ever, what a year of diversity and inclusion work at the Fund looks like.

January

The start of the diversity and inclusion year at the Fund was all about communicating our priorities. At the first all-staff update of the year we shared our 2022 priorities, and the reasons we chose those specific actions and activities. In January, teams discussed the priorities in more detail, gave feedback, and we surfaced and answered key questions before work began in earnest.

February

In February we marked the Lunar New Year with employees sharing details of their cultural celebrations on Yammer. We also started our discussions on race at work, as we commemorated Race Equality Week with an informal session open to all staff where we used real-life scenarios to highlight how our differences and lived experiences affect the way we see and experience the world.

'February was also LGBTQ+ History Month and, as if by fate, we received a Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI) Bronze Employer Award.'

February was also LGBTQ+ History Month and, as if by fate, we received a Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI) Bronze Employer Award. This was completely unexpected: we were assessed in the very bottom quartile of the index after our first submission, so to reach this milestone after only our second submission felt surreal. The win fuelled our energies and motivations for the year ahead.

March

In March, Podcast Club returned in honour of International Women’s Day and we talked about the podcast episode of How To Fail with Elizabeth Day featuring Bernardine Evaristo, the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. On International Women’s Day itself, we shared feminist resources on Yammer and staff across The Fund shared photos striking the #BreakTheBias pose and personal commitments to women's equality. At a staff engagement event, our Allyship Working Group recapped our allyship journey to date and started a discussion about what we can do individually and collectively to make allyship a greater reality at the Fund. Finally, on Transgender Day of Visibility, we held a lunch-and-learn session featuring Cynthia Fortlage, who shared her experiences as a trans woman with us all.

April

In April it was all-hands-on-deck as we started preparations for our second Talent Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation (TIDE) submission. We gathered evidence to illustrate our work across eight assessed areas of inclusion, including strategy, leadership and recruitment in time for submission in May.

May

'We also explored loneliness in an anonymous forum where staff could share experiences, and connect with those experiences and each other.'

May was an action-packed month. During Mental Health Awareness Week, we heard from a team member who had worked in a mental health team before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. We also explored loneliness in an anonymous forum where staff could share experiences, and connect with those experiences and each other. Later in the month, our Senior Management Team (SMT) attended the first of two anti-racism training sessions (the second followed in June) with our partners at brap geared at getting to grips with what it means to be truly anti-racist and the role of leaders in that journey.

Also in May, a group of staff representing a cross-section of the Fund came together for a session that explored how we could make sure we were including diverse voices across our work, exploring what different parts of the organisation were doing to ensure that representation, and learning from and being inspired by each other. A memorable lunch-and-learn session from our Working Parents Network covered ‘five things you didn’t know about being a working parent’ and featured lots of photos of adorable children.

June

In June, the Fund’s Diversity and Inclusion Board, which has strategic oversight of the Fund’s diversity and inclusion work and includes a member of our Board of Trustees for accountability, met virtually. Halfway through the year seemed to be a good point to take stock and benchmark against our 2022 priorities.

The rest of the month was reserved for all things Pride. We welcomed guest speaker Lior Locher to share experiences of being non-binary in the workplace. On Rainbow Day staff dressed up in bright colours of the rainbow and shared photos in one of the most vibrant Yammer threads the Fund had ever seen. We explored LGBTQ+ issues in a discussion session centred on real-life experiences. But of course, the icing on the cake was our first ever march at Pride in London.

July

In July, we focused on professional development for our Staff Network Leads with an external training session geared at effective communication, particularly the skills needed for dealing with difficult and sensitive situations, such as listening, self-awareness, empathy and curiosity.

'The training [for new starters] establishes a common understanding and language around diversity and inclusion and explores why both are important to us at the Fund.'

We also held our first diversity and inclusion introductory session as part of the induction for new starters at the Fund. The training establishes a common understanding and language around diversity and inclusion and explores why both are important to us at the Fund, as well as sharing our priorities, introducing our staff network groups, and covering the basics of The Equality Act (2010). We are proud to have inclusion front and centre from the start of team members’ journeys with the Fund.

August

August is typically a quieter month with many of the team on holiday or balancing childcare responsibilities and work over the summer holidays. We used the time to prepare for our Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI) submission which assesses organisations’ achievements and progress on LGBTQ+ equality.

September

In September we completed a workforce data monitoring exercise, to gather up-to-date demographic information about our team. We started with the baseline of the most recent Census from the Office for National Statistics and then worked with the teams at enei, ACAS, Stonewall and the NHS LGBT Advisory Group to refine and update the questions. We wanted to understand who makes up the Fund so that the story we tell of who we are is accurate. The data also helps us identify un- and under-represented groups to inform our plans and priorities. Our Chief Executive, Richard Murray, wrote a blog focused on ensuring the NHS meets the needs of trans people.

October

'Our celebrations – from the honest sharing of lived experiences of being Black at The Fund, to hearing voices and stories of Black NHS doctors, to our private screening of the movie Hidden Figures – left their mark on us a team.'

We’ve already shared details of our incredible Black History Month celebrations, but I can’t help but mention how wonderful it felt to leave my desk to the noise of steelpan music in the lobby and to enjoy Afro-Caribbean cuisine at work. Our celebrations – from the honest sharing of lived experiences of being Black at The Fund, to hearing voices and stories of Black NHS doctors, to our private screening of the movie Hidden Figures – left their mark on us a team.

But those weren’t the only activities in October. We went public with our findings of links to slavery and colonialisation in the history of The King’s Fund and outlined the start of a plan to address this part of our history. We continued our journey to become an anti-racist organisation by expanding our training to people at the Fund with management responsibilities which, as well as establishing a common understanding and a shared language for discussing race and racism at the Fund, started to explore what being an anti-racist manager would look, sound and feel like in practice. And last but by no means least, October saw the launch of the Open Wounds exhibition in collaboration with Tottenham Rights in our Cavendish Square premises.

November

November might be close to the end of the year, but there was no slowing down for us. Anti-racism training for people at the Fund who do not currently have line management responsibilities started. Our Women’s Network hosted a session on menopause in the workplace, open to all staff, which was informative and very well-received. Six team members trained and were certified as mediators to help us tackle conflict where it arises and have better conversations at work. And we officially launched two new policies – our overarching Diversity and Inclusion Policy and our Trans Inclusion Policy, alongside guidance to support and encourage dialogue about unprofessional behaviours at work.

We marked Disability History Month both internally on Yammer and externally with a blog by Deborah Fenney about what can we learn from history to improve disabled people’s experiences of health and care. At the end of the month, we found out that our TIDE submission had secured us an enei TIDE Bronze Employer Award, a wonderful way to end the year.

December

'We celebrate where we are and what we’ve achieved, and are hopeful for what’s coming next.'

At our final Board of Trustees meeting of the year, our Trustees agreed to keep our diversity targets at the Fund and to attend anti-racism training themselves in early 2023. Alongside the process of review and reflection that led to this blog, we started to plan our priorities for 2023 and shape plans that are robust enough to help achieve a real cultural shift, but not unattainable.

We celebrate where we are and what we’ve achieved, and are hopeful for what’s coming next. We have made a start and we are doing the work, but there is so much more to be done, and as we do it, we look forward to sharing that journey with you.