We want to ensure pharmacy can attract and retain talented individuals with disabilities and have had a special focus on this over the past three months.
Our Disability campaign raises awareness of visible and non-visible disabilities, long term and mental health conditions. We’re working on reducing barriers to entry to the profession, calling for more accessible working environments and encouraging employers to collect data on disability.
Blogs
Our fantastic volunteers from our Action in Belonging, Culture and Diversity (ABCD) group are the bedrock of our campaign, working hard to help and sharing their lived experiences of disability. A very big thank you to all our writers and our RPS Ability group volunteers for their contributions. Read their blogs here.
News
In March, we called for mandatory reporting of workforce disability data to create more inclusive practices in the workplace. We believe reporting of such data is key to tackling the disability employment gap.
Together with our volunteers, we’re challenging barriers to entry to the profession with the Higher Education Occupational Health Practitioners Service and the GPhC.
At the end of April we’re holding a roundtable with the NHS, GPhC, employers and RPS Ability to focus on improving accessibility in the workplace through greater use of flexible working.
Webinars and livestreams:
We opened the campaign by hosting a Disability Awareness Campaign Webinar where we heard from NHS Employers’ Paul Deemer and panellists about how the workplace can be made more accessible. Our recent livestream highlighted the experience of two pharmacists and how they manage their disability at work.
RPS Head of Professional Belonging Amandeep Doll says: “As part of our continued inclusion and diversity campaign, we’ve been working closely with our ABCD group, who have offered valuable and eye-opening insight into what it is like to live and work with a range of disabilities.
“We could not have brought you such varied and insightful content without their support and help, and hopefully our campaign and their experiences will start to reduce barriers for people with disabilities trying to enter to the profession and to encourage open and honest discussions about individual needs.”
Want to help? Sign our inclusion and wellbeing pledge
Take a look at our disability page and resources.