The British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) is committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse environment for all cardiovascular professionals: for our members, patients, staff, Affiliated Societies and other stakeholders across all our activities. We recognise that patient outcomes are best when there is equal opportunity for professionals to excel. Our core belief is that everyone should be treated fairly and equitably – without favour or prejudice – regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership status, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We strive to ensure that our policies, processes and practices go beyond compliance with the legislation and beyond the protected characteristics enshrined in legislation.
BCS is a membership organisation whose purpose is to improve the care and health outcomes of people with cardiovascular disease through education and training and the promotion of best practice. We do this by harnessing the knowledge, skills and contributions of our members, supported by a small staff team. We aim to attract and retain a membership body that is representative of the cardiovascular workforce and to encourage all members to consider actively participating in our Committees and educational activities. We have and aim to retain a talented and diverse staff group and remain committed to their continuous professional development and to ensuring that our recruitment, retention and development processes enable us to promote and maintain the diversity of our staff.
Position statement on Cardiology
The majority of our membership is made up of Cardiologists. Cardiology is a challenging and rewarding career but its future strength in a competitive environment depends on attracting and retaining the best applicants from a more diverse workforce, nurturing the talents of all members and delivering care through a workforce that better reflects the population it serves. The BCS is committed to embedding the principles of diversity and inclusion across its core objectives, thus providing equal opportunities and eliminating discrimination in all areas.
The demographic breakdown of members of the cardiovascular workforce/cardiology specialty is difficult to establish. While figures on gender are available, protected characteristics, such as ethnicity, religion, disability and sexual orientation are harder to obtain. The BCS has historically only monitored/recorded gender statistics, although our Action Plan commits us to work to change this.
Our EDI Principles
The BCS intends to be a society founded on core values of fairness and inclusion, cross-cutting our strategic principles of Leadership, Excellence and Education. We are a society for all cardiovascular professionals and we will increase engagement and collaborative work with Affiliated Societies, sharing best practice and inviting input on the direction of the Society. Our 3 year strategy (2025-2027) sets out our strategic priorities which are underpinned by these ED&I principles.
A diverse and representative Society
The BCS should represent its members, and its members should represent the cardiovascular workforce. This representation gives the BCS further legitimacy in our role as the Voice and Face of Cardiology in the UK. Demographic and characteristic representation is therefore important; members should see the Society as “their voice”. Questions of identity are only part of effective representation, but it is important that the Society aims to have representation across social demographics. We will begin by measuring and reporting the make-up of the cardiovascular workforce, and comparing this with our own membership diversity data.
We will offer leadership in this area through visible diversity in our Officers, and through our mentorships scheme. We will drive excellence in this domain through high-quality data, and tackling the systemic issues which impede high-quality practice. We will ensure appropriate representation across our educational offerings, and will engage with broader educational topics including disability awareness, tackling unconscious bias and sexism. Our KPIs will be increasingly aligned with survey and baseline data across important characteristics.
A professional and inclusive Society
The BCS is committed to being a Society for all cardiovascular professionals. This means being an inclusive Society, and supporting the cardiovascular community in fostering an inclusive workplace. We stand against discrimination, bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. Our leadership will continue to send the message that these behaviours are not acceptable. Through our education approach, we will design and deliver educational content for distribution across our platforms on issues pertaining to reducing these behaviours. KPIs will include establishing measurement systems, and then demonstrating reduction of measured inappropriate behaviours.
Our EDI Action Plan
Our rolling 3 year ED&I action plan sets out how we will deliver a culture in the society where all individuals have equality of access and inclusion. The Action Plan is centred on the 3 pillars of our 2025 strategy: Leadership, Excellence and Education and is underpinned by KPIs to monitor and drive progress. Our KPIs for 2026 and beyond will be reviewed at the end of 2025 to ensure that they remain a valid and ambitious measure of what we wish to achieve.
Our key ED&I strategic objectives
Leadership
- Cultivate and support an identifiably inclusive culture at BCS (members and staff)
- Develop the diversity of BCS leadership
- Support Affiliated Societies to develop their own EDI approaches
Excellence
- Use our voice to support reduction of national health inequalities in cardiology
- Reduce the prevalence of behaviours and experiences known to impact negatively on clinical effectiveness
- Address the structural barriers to achieving excellence for our members
Education
- Provide training to support members to foster BCS values in their own workplace including
- Team building and human factors
- Active bystander training
- Dealing with incivility