According to the most recent UK census data, we know that roughly one in five of the UK adult population has a disability. Some 80% of those disabilities are hidden or invisible.

Despite this statistic, we see in the 2023 NHS England Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) report that a mere 4.9% of staff employed there reported a disability. And while the reporting has increased from 3.1% in 2019, the reporting rate is still 400% lower than that of the general population.

It is inconceivable to think that our health service workforce could be that statistically different from the population as a whole. Rather, it is much more likely that the fear of disclosure – something I have written about previously – is what is preventing mainstreaming of disability and disclosure of conditions.

The 2023 NHS WDES findings would also support this argument. It states that employees who have a disability are twice as likely as able-bodied colleagues to be involved in capability proceedings. They were eight percentage points more likely to report bullying, harassment or unfavourable treatment than their peers without disabilities. This figure remained broadly similar whether looking at bullying and harassment by management, by colleagues or indeed by patients.

Collective action

Last year I wrote about the difficulties I had faced over the course of my career as a result of being a doctor with a disability. I spoke about it in front of the BMA’s annual representative meeting in 2023 where my motion regarding mandating of disability champions in all workplaces throughout the NHS and HSC Northern Ireland was passed.

Since then, work has been going on within the BMA to action this policy in a meaningful way; work which I have been very privileged to be involved with as part of the BMA’s EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) advisory group. We hope to see some outputs soon.

However, we all know stereotypes exist within medicine, and sometimes for good reason – as an emergency medicine specialty doctor, I have that stereotypical short attention span and inability to wait for things! So, while the BMA machines have been working in the background, ensuring the groundwork is complete and a solid foundation laid for a national approach, I have been impatiently bulldozing down obstacles at a local level!

Change at grassroots level

Through discussions around my trust’s local negotiating committee table, I was able to garner the support of the senior leadership team to bring forward and pilot the role of a disability champion within my trust.

After discussions about what the role might entail and how it could be incorporated within the organisation, we decided to rename the role as a disability advocate. I felt it was vital that this new role would actively support staff, students and managers alike within the trust – rather than a typical ‘champion’ who can sometimes be seen as little more than a tick-box position.

This is also why I felt it was imperative that the advocate post would be filled only by a staff member with lived experience of disability or long-term conditions. This was important not only because of the need to make the role a credible one, led by someone who had experienced the negativity and closed-door attitude that exists in healthcare for disabled staff, but also, as described in WDES, disabled people are almost six percentage points less likely to achieve career progression than non-disabled colleagues.

Fortunately, my employers agreed, and I have been humbled and honoured to have been appointed disability advocate in my trust, the first such role in a Northern Ireland health service workplace setting. 

Importance of visibility

It is my hope that by improving visibility of disabled people in the workforce, disability will become destigmatised.  

My own disability was initially invisible, but over the years that situation has changed. Transitioning to becoming a wheelchair user was difficult, but I knew that I needed to accept it and ‘own’ my wheels. So I opted for a flamingo pink, glittery chair and named her Barbie, who – thanks to recent cinematic exposure – we know to be an incredibly strong woman!

It is only through normalisation and destigmatisation of disability – whether through small but visually powerful acts such as my wheelchair, Barbie, or meaningful organisational change such as the appointment of disability advocates in workplaces – that we will improve the psychological safety of our staff with disabilities and empower them to disclose their own conditions.

When such a disclosure is made, it should trigger support mechanisms that will then level the playing field for these staff members and improve the quality and longevity of their working life. This is vital as these staff members, of which I am proudly one, provide healthcare services with a whole different perspective towards illness than someone who has never experienced lived disability or illness for themselves.

While this might sound like an extract from a draft copy of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’, I am providing ‘proof of concept’ in my workplace – that disabled staff are no less valuable than their able-bodied colleagues and that we deserve to be heard. We deserve to be treated fairly, and, with the support of our BMA, I have a dream that I will no longer be the unicorn doctor in a wheelchair but just another member of a truly diverse workforce.

Clodagh Corrigan is an emergency medicine specialty doctor in Northern Ireland, deputy chair of BMA Northern Ireland council and joint deputy chair of the Northern Ireland SAS doctors committee