Lincolnshire partnership wins LGBT+ Achievement

A local mental health trust has been recognised as one of the most inclusive employers in Britain for their commitment and diversity to LGBT+ equality.

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) was ranked 77th nationally and fourth in the health and social care sector by LGBT+ equality charity, Stonewall.

LPFT Staff and executive members celebrating achievement.
Photo: Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Stonewall encourages employers to create LGBT-inclusive environments where employees can feel accepted and safe in the workplace.

The achievement recognises organisations across Britain who provide equality within the workplace and received more than 92 thousand anonymous responses from employees about diversity.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Leader at LPFT, Sophie Ford, said: “We have an LGBT+ and allies staff network where staff members come together to work out what the organisation needs to do to be more inclusive and provide peer support for each other.

“We’ve been working on this for eight years and the fact it has taken this long to get into the top one-hundred, shows the hard work of all of our staff who help make that inclusion happen.”

LPFT has reached the top one-hundred after eight years of working to improve inclusivity in the work place.

In 2018, Stonewall released research which revealed more than a third of people have hidden that they are LGBT+ at work and around one in five have received negative comments from colleagues.

Another report by Stonewall also shows how in 2017-18, 12 per cent of trans employees were physically attacked by a colleague or customer.

Gender Representative for the LGBT+ Campaign at the University of Lincoln, Riley Wade, said: “These statistics are a major issue and having minor policies in place aren’t enough. Workplaces need a strong zero tolerance policy to trans-phobia and homophobia.

“I don’t think these things are tackled enough in the workplace. Of course things are slowly changing over time, but I don’t think it’s changing at a rate that is satisfactory.”

This year’s Stonewall’s Equality Index was thought to be the largest yet with over 445 employers entering to show their demonstration to equality in the workplace.