Equality Diversity and Human Rights Week - Peter Sutton's Blog

From competition to collaboration

Peter Sutton, Executive Director of Planning & Business Development, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust (STSFT)

Peter shares his reflections on how the NHS is continuing on its inclusion journey and has made moves to address inequalities noting the opportunities to broaden the reach of such vital work.

For Equality Diversity and Human Rights Week 2023 I have the pleasure of reflecting on the progress I have seen over the years I have worked in the NHS and especially how locally we are actively trying to tackle inequalities and embed inclusion.

The NHS has faced many challenges throughout its 75 years, and whilst it adapts to meet the needs of the population it was, and still is, free at the point of use.  I am proud to have worked in the NHS for nearly 30 years and in my current role I have had the opportunity to see how STSFT has developed and established itself as a leading employer in the North East. 

The people, the variety and making a difference are the reasons I do my job, and do it with pride. Our staff and teams are our greatest asset and getting to work with so many different teams and departments is a real pleasure. The importance and value of having diverse teams is hugely important to me; enabling diversity in teams means staff come up with new and innovative ideas that would not be possible if everyone was the same. We know that different perspectives often result in better decisions and diversity helps people feel comfortable voicing their opinions which is important part of feeling valued within the NHS.

As a Senior Leader it is my job to ensure we have equity of opportunity for all and as such I have worked with staff over the years as a mentor; this has given me the opportunity to listen to and try to gain understanding of the challenges that people face and enables me to help make the system more equitable.  

We will always have more to do, but considering health equity and equality impacts is starting to be embedded in our processes and how we think and we see this now when we develop a service and new ways of working, or invest in new kit and technology.  These develops lead to genuine improvements for our patients and make a difference to our staff.

For me I see a stark contrast to years gone by when the focus was very much on competition, rather than collaboration.  The relationship between commissioners and providers was often challenging, which at times created conflict, however there has been a marked change in how organisations are working together to tackle challenges and I believe a recognition that to make serious inroads we must work better together, collaboratively if we are to make said changes sustainable.

We have more opportunities than ever before to share and learn from each other which will help us create an inclusive culture where learning is used as improvement tool.  I chose to work in planning as often in the NHS we are constantly dealing with the ‘here and now’, so the fact this role was aimed at thinking ahead and working across so many different areas (both inside and outside the Trust) made it really attractive to me.  Helping teams with their plans for the future and trying to turn them into reality is extremely rewarding, particularly when we see both patients and staff benefiting.

Covid-19 really did put an onus on NHS services and highlighted how vital the many parts of such a huge system are crucial.  The pandemic shone a light on the inequalities that many communities face and for the first time; in my opinion, the NHS and other partners have really started to lead the way in efforts to tackle these.  We now realise the benefits of working with partner organisations across different sectors in a collaborative way rather than in isolation.  We take a pragmatic approach as often compromise and flexibility are required when working together, with so many people, teams and organisations.

I feel a sense of pride knowing the passion within STSFT for addressing inequalities. We have established a dedicated inclusion team who work to support our workforce and our patients and we have invested in our population health team to tackle inequalities. We are listening to and learning from our staff and patient experiences to continuously improve and sharing our knowledge with partners and vice versa.

We believe the best way to deliver for local people is to work collaboratively, listening to and learning from our communities to put in place lasting, accessible and inclusive services.

We will always have more to do, but real changes are happening to address inequalities and I encourage our diverse teams to do the same.

May 2023

Peter Sutton