Comparing diversity in the Coventry and Warwick clinical psychology doctorate selection process against national standards

Abstract

The National Health Service has pledged to improve equal opportunities for their workforce and has highlighted race, gender, and sexual orientation as specific areas of focus. In addition to striving towards equal opportunities for staff, it is vital that the workforce is representative of the UK population it serves. Literature has highlighted a lack of diversity specifically in the field of clinical psychology according to multiple areas of difference, including gender, disability, socio-econimic background, and ethnicity. Health Education England have published an action plan to improve equity of access to Clinical Psychology and one of the action points stipulates that course centres should be transparent about diversity data relating to their selection process. This evaluation considers diversity in the selection process between 2017-2020 for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy) programme at Coventry and Warwick Universities (C&W); data for C&W is compared with national data for all DClinPsy courses. This evaluation considers six demographic characteristics (gender, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic background, ethnicity, disability) across three stages of the selection process (application, shortlisting, acceptance). Findings are considered in the context of existing literature and compared against results from a previous audit conducted in 2009. Limitations of the study are discussed, and key recommendations are made based on the findings.