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Evidence shows there is a need to ensure that health and social care professionals are capable to deliver care and support to a diverse population (EHRC, 2010). However, issues with professional conduct and discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT+) people in health and social care, continue to exist in the UK (Stonewall, 2015) and most probably in most EU countries.
This unsatisfactory position indicates the need to ensure that health and social care professional education includes exploration of LGBT+ issues, in order to enable health professionals to provide quality services which are free from prejudice to this population. However, there are numerous challenges which the educators must address and overcome in order to achieve this aim, including ignorance and fear, lack of confidence; negative religious, cultural and personal views; the lack of a learning culture that values diversity, and so on (Davy et al, 2015; Pezzella & Carr, 2016).
Research suggests that specific training on LGBT+ issues may result in better knowledge and skills of the health and social care workforce, which reduces the heteronormative and cisgendered (when a person’s sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex) communication between providers and LGBT+ people, as well as diminishing the feelings of stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBTQ+ people (Sekoni, Gale, Manga‐Atangana, Bhadhuri, & Jolly, 2017). Despite this, there seems to be a lack of covering in LGBT+ health needs in the health and social care curriculum. Hence, there are limited resources and teaching material on the LGBT+ issues.
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