Equality and diversity

Alder Hey is an inclusive, supportive environment with warm and friendly staff.

The 450,000+ patients we see each year are a natural reflection of the rich, diverse mix of communities and cultures in the UK. We are committed to serving everybody equally, without prejudice.

Alder Hey is an inclusive, supportive environment with warm and friendly staff. As an organisation, we are mindful of the differing needs of individuals or groups, and we aim to meet all our expectations of us. To make sure we do this and develop our services where necessary, we actively engage with local community organisations.

Our Staff Networks

We want to understand how it feels to work at Alder Hey so that we can work together with our staff to ensure they feel cared for, listened to, and valued. Our fantastic developing staff networks are growing from strength to strength and have been a powerful voice and source of positive change.

• The LGBTQIA+ staff network continues to support the Head of EDI in implementing the recommendations from the Navajo assessment. The network has developed an Allyship training programme which they have delivered to the Finance team. The programme is aimed at providing staff with an understanding of Allyship and how they can actively support the staff network by becoming an Ally. The network members are also supporting the Learning and Development team to create lived experience videos which will support and complement manager training.

• The REACH staff network continues to make positive changes and is supporting the Trust to undertake work to become an Anti-Racist organisation.

• The Armed Forces staff network is engaging with the local Armed Forces community and will be holding a series of events to mark this occasion.  They are also working hard to encourage any armed forces children, young people, and their families to come together in a safe space with others from armed forces backgrounds. They continue to work with the local community cadets.

• The ACE Disabilities and Long-Term Conditions staff network continues to grow. The meetings continue to be extremely positive generating ideas to make Alder Hey a great place to work. The group have recently been working with the Head of Facilities to provide insight into the Alder Hey environment, identifying ways of improving facilities which will not only benefit our staff but also our children and young people.

Clinal Research Facility

Vision

The NIHR Alder Hey Clinical Research Facility (AHCRF) is committed to ensuring equality, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) are fully integrated into our service and culture.

The case for this is both moral (it is not fair if we don’t include some people but do include others) and scientific (if we only test medicines for children on certain limited groups, will the research answers be correct?).

To achieve this, we will undertake work in five themes based on areas related to our work, learning about where we can improve, implementing changes, checking to make sure it has made a difference, and teaching others about what has helped.

Foundations

Our strategy has been created in conjunction with the AHCRF Patient and Parent Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) strategy, and is informed by children, young people and families, as well as the NIHR and University of Liverpool (UoL) EDI strategies to ensure children and young people are central to all our efforts.  The numbers and letters shown below are used throughout this EDI strategy to show where our plans, and NIHR/UoL strategies are aligned.

Everything we do is centred around the families we treat.

Our five strategic themes

1. Become a more inclusive funder of research.
2. Widen access for participation for greater diversity and inclusion.
3. Improve and invest in the NIHR talent pipeline.
4. Embed evidence-led diversity and inclusion approaches.
5. Collaborate with partners for impact and sustainability.

Our PPIE strategic objectives

• Increasing sustainable capacity and capability
• Broadening diversity
• Continuous improvement of services
• Embedding standards, reporting, feedback and evaluation