Report of the Better Employment Workstream by Justin Varney

The Department of Health’s Equalities and Human Rights group organises an annual conference for stakeholders interested in the work of its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory Group (SOGIAG). Over the course of a full day’s proceedings each of the various work stream chairs normally present details of what their team has been working on during the year. Senior civil servants also discuss their work and inclusion aims too.

Dr Justin Varney chairs the Better Employment workstream. In his day job, Justin has a senior role in public health for the Barking and Dagenham PCT in London’s East End. He began his presentation by picking up on the examples that Ruth Hunt had highlighted in her talk about Stonewall’s report on workplace discrimination and then went on to describe some of the activities that the workstream has promoted in the last year to raise the profile of LGBT health workers and begin to combat the extent of homophobia and transphobia in services.