The Royal College of Psychiatrists has launched a 15-action item anti-racism campaign tagged Act Against Racism at the annual International Conference of Psychiatrists in held in Liverpool.

The actions provide guidelines for employers to tackle racism, intersectional discrimination, and its impact on minoritized ethnic in the Mental Health Trust of the NHS.

The college chose to, “Understand racism from an intersectional perspective, as something that affects people differently depending on their other personal characteristics – for example, their gender or age. Urgent attention is needed.”

The college was optimistic that if deployed, the action item would help employer organizations across the UK to tackle racism at a strategic and systemic level. It reasoned that racism must be addressed as a matter of legality and morality and a necessary measure to improve retention and recruitment.

Dr Rajesh Mohan, Presidential Lead for Race and Equality in the college and initiator of the campaign, said the racial disparities he saw in all areas of mental healthcare trust motivated the initiative.

He believed organizational culture was the most important domain of the six domains. Mohan said, “Having a good organization culture that calls out problems when they arise, and which is also able to detect and do something about discrimination is the most important domain”.

The membership organization divided the action item into six domains. The list includes leadership and strategy, equity of opportunity, accountability, organizational culture, addressing concerns, and specific sections of the medical workforce.

Secretary to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Ms Laoji said the college found six in every ten members have been affected by racism. She said, “We in our survey of members found that six in ten members have been affected by racism in the workplace.”

She added that over 29% of the psychiatrists said racism in the workplace affected their health. Hence, the college is setting up a 15-point guideline to tackle racism in the Mental Health Trust of the NHS.

Many psychiatrist members of the college believe the campaign is the way to go and were optimistic that it would address the recurrent instances of racism and discrimination based on their ethnic backgrounds.

The campaign document clearly stated the 15 tasks it proposed to help employer organizations combat racism in the mental health trust.

The leadership and strategy domain covered two actions with a variety of efforts like making a clear organizational commitment to tackling all forms of discrimination, as well as ensuring leaders have in-depth knowledge and understanding about racism, intersectional discrimination, and its impact on minoritized ethnic staff, as well as have the skills, experience, and integrity to implement mitigations.

Accountability, the second domain, encompasses three actions. It proposes the appointment of a senior board representative and member of the leadership team to have senior officer responsibility for delivering the agreed actions, and the appointees should have overarching responsibility for data collection, analysis, and stratified annual reporting to track progress. Also, the appointees were responsible for co-producing strategic plans.

The third domain, addressing concerns, covers points six to eight. It encourages organizations to ensure their staff support service offers effective, confidential, and independent points of contact to support minoritized ethnic staff and to have clear policies and procedures for staff to report any instances of bullying, harassment, or concerns about discrimination around career progression, differential attainment, and disciplinary action. It emphasized and followed through on a zero-tolerance approach to racist behavior from patients and their carers towards all healthcare staff.

Equity of opportunity, the fourth domain, covers actions nine and 10. The action tasks organizations to establish an evidence-based, de-biasing recruitment and promotion process on the one hand and provide mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship to all staff

Actions eleven and twelve are under the organizational culture domain. Organizations are tasked to create a culture that makes staff feel safe, encourages openness and honesty about racism cum a workplace culture that is welcoming for minoritized ethnic staff. The twelfth action wants organizations to develop a system that addresses the needs, views, and concerns of minority ethnic staff.

The last domain, specific sections of the medical workforce, covers the remaining three points. While the thirteen encourages organizations to increase awareness among their staff, the fourteen point recommends early pastoral, practical, and professional induction and support for International Medical Graduates and the fifteen point charges the implementation of the British Medical Association Charter for Specialty and Specialist Doctors.