Anti-Racism statement
This statement sets out British Heart Foundation’s commitment to being an anti-racist organisation. It includes the principles that guide us, and the steps we’re taking to drive meaningful change.
We are committed to being an anti-racist charity.
Our vision is where everyone has a healthier heart for longer. Racism in society negatively impacts people's cardiovascular health. Many people whose background is ethnicity minority in the UK are disproportionately affected by cardiac conditions. For example, Black people more commonly live with hypertension, and those of South Asian heritage have a higher prevalence of coronary disease from a young age, but they may not equally receive the heart tests and treatments they need.
We will put anti-racism at the heart of our organisation, to better serve everyone and create a truly fair, diverse and inclusive community of colleagues, researchers and volunteers.
We will continue to identify inequalities within processes and develop ways in which we can build anti-racist practice into our decision-making. We are driven to make systems and processes better, being brave and implementing change, informed on what to do, and compassionate in listening to diverse experiences. These actions will allow us to create an environment where everyone can succeed regardless of their background.
We will actively work to eliminate racism in all its forms.
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We want to foster belonging and inclusion to create an environment where everyone can thrive. This includes addressing persisting inequalities, and after reviewing our data, the most significant differences that continue to exist are in relation to ethnicity.
Our Anti-Racism statement helps us define expectations about how we work, explore why disparities exist and proactively address them.
For example, our data showed a disparity in recruitment outcomes, where white candidates were more likely to be appointed from interview than ethnic minoritised candidates. We took steps to de-bias recruitment, including unconscious bias training for hiring managers, anonymous CV software and an Interview Builder to prompt suitable questions and how to score answers. As a result of the anti-racism statement and the steps we’ve taken in recruitment, outcomes have improved for ethnic minoritised candidates.
We launched the statement internally first and focused on colleague experiences. We’ve made good progress and while there is still more to do internally, we are now exploring how we use our external influence to tackle racism.
This includes:
- what we fund and the degree of inclusivity in the design of our research
- the representativeness of the cardiovascular research community
- our advocacy work on health inequalities
- gathering better intelligence on the reasons behind the disparities in cardiovascular health outcomes for some ethnic minoritised communities.
The statement sets out our commitment to being an anti-racist charity. It addresses systemic inequalities, disadvantage and discrimination.
We launched the statement internally in October 2024 and focused on colleague experiences. There have been 2 key strands of work.
1. Recruitment, training and colleague journeys
This includes:
- continuing to de-bias recruitment decision making, particularly around short-listing and interviewing
- building awareness of racial disparities within appropriate training offerings
- monitoring colleague journeys to identify disparities and develop good practice that improves outcomes for all.
2. Accountability and challenge
This includes:
- all colleagues challenging racist attitudes and behaviour observed, arising during our business
- senior leaders are accountable for tackling racist attitudes or behaviour either observed or brought to their attention
- senior leaders drive positive change and champion anti-racism by role modelling, active listening, addressing discrimination promptly and challenging negative attitudes and practices.
As mentioned in the previous question, we continue to make progress with our colleague experiences, and now we we’re exploring how we use our external influence to tackle racism. This includes:
- what we fund and the degree of inclusivity in the design of our research
- the representativeness of the cardiovascular research community
- our advocacy work on health inequalities
- gathering better intelligence on the reasons behind the disparities in cardiovascular health outcomes for some ethnic minoritised communities.