This year's focus

At the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management, the Diversity and Inclusion working group have recognised a need to drive diversity and inclusion within the healthcare sector. The Diversity and Inclusion Working Group was formed in 2017.

Every year, the IHEEM Diversity and Inclusion working group focus on identifying and addressing perceived barriers within the Institute and wider engineering profession.

Our IHEEM Diversity and Inclusion Working Group provides guidance and advice to our members on diversity and inclusion matters. Main objectives of this group include, encouraging more people from diverse backgrounds to engage with the Institute, develop and implement the Institute’s diversity and inclusion programme, inspire the next generation and identify and address any perceived barriers within hospital engineering.

This years Focus

In 2019 Diversity Programme focused on Women in Engineering, and the group were actively getting involved in various events and seminars. This included IHEEM’s annual Conference, where the group hosted a programme of content around how we can develop the profession to be reflected on the community it serves and how we can develop tomorrow’s people.

This year’s focus will provide an opportunity to highlight lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ+) engineers as well as current and historic barriers to inclusion. It is a chance to present positive examples and tools that can help to develop a more inclusive culture within engineering for LGBTQ+ engineers. Due to the current climate, the Diversity and Inclusion committee have decided to extend this focus into 2021 allowing them to further support events and initiatives which will allow more overall exposure and add more value to this important strand of work.