Subject : UK: Being the gay one: Experiences of LGB people working in health & social care

Last Friday the Department of Health published an important report,
commissioned from Stonewall Research, looking into the barriers that
prevent LGB people from reporting homophobia from fellow staff working
in the health service.

The report will be found at :

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPoli
cyAndGuidance/DH_075568

Although this is a report specifically about experiences reported by
Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual staff, the findings could just as easily apply
to trans staff working in the NHS too, when their background is known.

Before anyone asks, there are very specific reasons why this project,
resulting from SOGIAG recommendations, looked only at LGB experiences.

The scope wasn't a choice by Stonewall, the selected research
contractor, but resulted from decisions we made for the specification of
this project within the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory
Group.

I offer that explanation so that people can concentrate instead on the
report's very serious findings, and the acknowledgment of those (below)
by Mike Murnane, one of the civil servants working on these issues
within the Department of Health's Equality and Human Rights Group.

For more information about the research, you can listen to Ruth Hunt
talking about the work at http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/1491

- Christine Press For Change

--------------------------------
From: Mike Murnane
Sent: 15 June 2007 11:25
To: LGBTHealthUK@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [LGBTHealthUK] Being the gay one: Experiences of LGB people
working in health & social care
---------------------------------

The Department of Health commissioned Stonewall to undertake a project
to identify the key barriers to reporting of homophobia against health
and social care employees. Stonewall's report, Being the gay one:
Experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people working in the health
and social care sector, by Ruth Hunt, Katherine Cowan and Brent
Chamberlain was published on 15th June 2007. It includes a series of
recommendations to the Department for overcoming these barriers.

There is no place for any form of discrimination in health and social
care. The Department recognises the seriousness of the findings of this
report and work is underway to meet the recommendations outlined in the
report through the Better Employment workstream of the Department's
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory Group and through its
broader equality and human rights work programme.

Copies of the Report can be found at:-

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPoli
cyAndGuidance/DH_075568



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Man [...] must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth." (Jean Paul Sartre, 1943)