19,000 disabled people kept out of work by Scotland's NHS

Recent blogs here have used data supplied by NHS Scotland to show that there are such huge gaps in the equality profiling data it has on its workforce that it cannot evidence any equality being achieved for BME people, LGB people and people who subscribe to a religion or belief.

And what about disabled people?

Before we go there, some context.  Some employment facts on disabled people.

• There are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work
• Only half of disabled people of working age are in work (50%), compared with 80% of non disabled people
• Employment rates vary greatly according to the type of impairment a person has; only 20% of people with mental health problems are in employment
• 23% of disabled people have no qualifications compared to 9% of non disabled people
• Nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability
• The average gross hourly pay for disabled employees is £11.08 compared to £12.30 for non disabled employees.

The Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] estimates that the proportion of disabled people in the workforce population across the UK as a whole is 13.1%.  The Commission itself reports that 23% of its staff identifies as having a disability.

So, what is the score in the wannabe world-leading health service, NHS Scotland ?

Just 0.5% of the workforce.  In other words out of the 154,366 people employed by NHS Scotland at March this year, a paltry 772 feel confident about identifying as disabled.  If NHS Scotland had just managed to employ the proportion of disabled people in the working population, that would mean it would employ 20,222 people who are disabled - over 19,000 more than are there at present.  If NHS Scotland had become a world-class equalities employer and managed to mirror the EHRC's approach to disability equality, our NHS would provide employment to 35,504 people, instead of the shameful figure of just 772 people.

NHS Scotland as an employer is failing to deliver equality for disabled people.  If it is a world leader, it is in a dive to the bottom on disability equality.  This can be no accident.  This represents a clear case of structural and institutional disability discrimination at the heart of the NHS, with over 19,000 disabled people paying the price and being kept out of work as a direct result.