Tackling workforce inequalities in health and adult social care

CQC commissioned research on workforce inequalities in the health and adult social care sector to understand the role of systemic, institutional, and interpersonal discrimination and the best ways to tackle these through regulation. The study was conducted by the Institute for Employment Studies, in collaboration with IFF Research.

The research also aims to find the best way to reduce this unfairness by using regulation. Areas looked at incude:

• how unfair treatment at work can be identified more clearly, not just by using the same data
• what health and care services can do to reduce unfair treatment of workers in health and adult social care, and how to check if it is working
• how regulatory impact mechanisms (powers and tools) can be used to help make things fairer

The research includes different ways to learn about workforce inequalities:

• looking at other research
• asking health and care workers what they think, using a survey
• studying how different health and care organisations work

This research identified that the majority of staff surveyed had experienced or seen unfair treatment at work. This report covers the details of how and why this is happening, and the most effective ways to make workplaces fairer.