NHS in Scotland part of the problem when it comes to disability equality in work

For a political party whose whole purpose is the cause of independence, one would have expected the SNP to be gleefully trashing the barriers to independence commonly encountered by disabled people - especially in those areas under direct control of the SNP government, such as in strategic policy in the jobs market of the public sector.

Recent research into data published earlier this year by Scotland's 22 Health Boards would suggest the SNP in government has, like many others before it, become the establishment which finds it quite likes how the status quo works and confines reform to some very modest shop window dressing.  

The Scottish government’s own equality evidence finder reveals that 23% of adults living in Scotland in 2014 had a disability.  In 2010, 12.5% of degrees were held by disabled people, and 8.6% of starts in the 2016/17 Modern Apprenticeships identified as disabled people.  Yet the proportion of the NHS Scotland workforce in 2017 identifying as disabled people is 0.85%.

Getting into a job in the NHS is clearly not barrier-free for disabled people.  On the basis of an analysis of the employment data reports published by NHS Boards in 2017, there is an almost total lack of evidence that active and positive use is being made of the employment data gathered on recruitment to show that Boards are creating discrimination-free gateways to equality of opportunity for disabled people in getting and sustaining employment within the NHS.  

When it comes to what the employment data reports say about those people currently working in the NHS, not one of the 22 Health Boards has even worked out just how many disabled people would be employed once disability discrimination was eliminated from workplace cultures and practices.

In any analysis of why disabled people are leaving work with the NHS, the extent to which Boards are failing to gather and use data is astonishing.  Not one of the Boards has opted to aggregate leaving data over several years [the obligation to gather data on disability has a long legal history pre-dating the Equality Act 2010] as an aid to uncovering deep structural trends and patterns in disabled people and non-disabled people joining, staying in and leaving the workforce.  What appears to be an almost casual disregard amongst Boards for undertaking proper scrutiny, as set out in the specific equality duties, of why disabled people are leaving employment inevitably means the potential for disability discrimination being the trigger for people deciding to leave employment will continue to remain hidden by poor data gathering systems and organisations cultures.

The totality of the data published by Health Boards suggests a culture that can't be bothered making the effort to deliver disability equality at work, reinforced by the lack of any legal action being taken by the Equality & Human Rights Commission to enforce full compliance with the equality legislation.  Independence, through equality of opportunity to earn a living, is being institutionally denied to disabled people in Scotland.  It has been denied for over 10 years by a political party in power for whom independence is said to transcend all - but not, it would appear, being disabled.