Introduction
At Aster care, we have always known the value of recruiting a diverse workforce. Our owner and Founder, Muthu Govindarajah, is Indian Asian himself, and the business was set up in Portsmouth; a city that has grown more culturally diverse over the past 30 years.
Our regulators, the Care Quality Commission , regularly ask us about our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across staff and service user processes but we are also generally interested in this and are keen to review our progress every few years.
We first carried out a review in March 2021 and another in September 2023, comparing this to the March 2021 report. We are quite proud of our achievements and thought it would be interesting to share these findings!
A bit of background...
By 1993, multiple new private domiciliary care providers joined the market after the full implementation of the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 over a three year period. At this time in the area, it was largely white, female staff of varying ages who applied for care worker positions. However, by 2009 when Aster Care was developing its domiciliary care service in Portsmouth, the social dynamic began to change when its university expanded, encouraging more foreign students to the area. Up until this point, the recruitment of white females of varying ages were the dominant workforce. The Care Quality Commission itself was undergoing all sorts of changes in order to keep pace with the changes in regulations, and the spotlight on EDI in care increased.
What did we focus on?
- Existing policies, amendments, and their communication to staff
- New policies introduced since the last report
- Our recruitment processes
- The diversity of our current workforce and how this compares to 2021
- Staff Pay
- The promotion of BAME employees
- Office restructure
- Training of employees
- Representation of Aster Care through the media
- New good practice and change since 2021
What were our findings?
At the time of this new report, we found very little change in the number of staff employed. However, the number of staff from the BAME community has risen to 54.83% from 39% We are unsure at this stage as to whether our findings in this area are similar to other care providers both locally and nationally.
Our staff originate from ten different countries around the world (recruited from within the UK), and also from three different religions (Hindu, Christians, Muslim). Those stating they were Christian were up by 550% and largely made up of black Africans.
We have three people under the age of 25, and 3 people over the age of 70 years. Of both age groups, two staff under 25 years and one over the age of 70 years still supports the out of hours service to ensure a seamless 24 hour/7 day per week service.
We noted that two members of staff identified themselves into ethnic categories that we hadn’t listed; mixed race and Indian Asian, and so these were added.
Summary
It was very interesting to review the range and background of people who provide such a wonderful service to our service users. We saw that the proportion of white staff wanting to be in care had fallen, and that we had employed more Black African people than before. We will share our findings with other providers in the area and see if there are similar patterns elsewhere in the city of Portsmouth!
In addition, it was also good to see a mix of younger and older people working here. This evidenced that we support people beyond retirement whilst also encouraging younger staff to explore a career here, or use it to go onto greater things! Also, the new mental health and long term conditions policies were a welcome introduction to good practice that will benefit all staff.
find out about more about some of the services Aster Care provide:
