NMC publishes findings from Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) survey for 2022

Published on 13 October 2022

In 2019 we signed up to the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and were the first professional regulator to participate.

We now submit data to WRES annually and in July 2022 we collected our third round of data from colleagues across the organisation.

This year 34.9 percent of NMC colleagues responded to our survey. This is a decrease compared to the year before, where the response rate was 48.7 percent. Our latest data shows some key improvements in our organisation but there is still room for further improvement and we are considering how we can increase participation in future years.

Andrea Sutcliffe CBE, Chief Executive and Registrar for the NMC, said:

“We publish this information annually because we’re committed to being transparent and accountable on workforce race equality matters at the NMC and we care deeply about being an employer that is inclusive, fair and values diversity.

“This year we’ve seen a reduction in NMC colleagues reporting discrimination, bullying and harassment in our workplace. The number of colleagues from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds reporting harassment from people outside the NMC has also gone down, but worryingly it’s still three times higher than it is for our white colleagues.

“It’s positive that Black and Minority Ethnic colleagues' perceptions of equal career progression at the NMC has improved. But we know we still have some way to go, as our previously published ethnicity pay gap data shows.

“We now have a workforce race equality working group to oversee our response to the findings from this report and other indicators including our ethnicity pay gap report. We have a collective and individual responsibility in making sure colleagues from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds have better and more positive experiences of working at the NMC.

“As the regulator of diverse nursing and midwifery professions, I am determined that we are an exemplar in transparently acknowledging and actively tackling our own issues while we urge employers across health and social care to do the same.”

Read the 2022 Workforce Race Equality Standard report


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