NIHR SRMRC to support Race Equality Framework pilot

As a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded centre, the Surgical Research and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMRC) will be taking part in a reflective assessment to test the newly-developed Race Equality Framework between August and December this year. The purpose of the pilot is to assess how “current policies, practices and organisational culture could be changed to better serve diverse communities, foster improved race relations and ultimately improve healthcare delivery”.

The Race Equality Framework was developed by the NIHR Race Equality Public Action Group (REPAG), which is co-chaired and led by Black, African, Asian and Caribbean heritage people. Contributors also included public members with lived experience of the challenges being addressed, public involvement leads and researchers.

Jeremy Taylor, Director of the NIHR Centre for Engagement and Dissemination (CED), which is leading on the pilot, said: “I am very excited that we have reached the stage of testing out our Race Equality Framework. This will be an important tool in creating a more inclusive research culture.”

The NIHR SRMRC is working in partnership with our Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) community to identify and address health inequalities throughout our research.  This Framework will give us the opportunity to reflect on current practice and identify how to further increase the ethnic diversity of people taking part in our research. This will, in turn, better reflect the needs of the population at large.

The results from this pilot will be included in the final version of the Framework which is due to be released nationally in 2022.

This information is taken from the Race Equality Framework page of the NIHR website, please click on the link for more details.