Equality and Diversity
The Equality Act 2010 introduced a general public sector equality duty, which public bodies, including the NHS has to meet. The general duty has three aims and requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to:
• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010
• advance equality of opportunity between people from different groups
• foster good relations between people from different groups. This involves tackling prejudice and promoting understanding between people from different groups.
The duty is underpinned by specific duties. These duties set additional requirements for public sector organisations which are to publish:
• equality objectives, at least every four years (by April 2012)
• information to demonstrate their compliance with the equality duty, at least annually (by 31 January 2012).
The NHS is actively working to improve how we embed equality and diversity into the services we deliver, and how we manage our staff to ensure we can provide better access to service users and a better quality of care. To do this the NHS has developed the Equality Delivery System and this Trust will be publicising more information about how well we are doing against the goals and outcomes in the Equality Delivery System by April 2012. This work will supplement the Trust’s existing Single Equality Scheme.
Equality Objectives for 2012 - 2013
The Trust has worked with a range of internal and external stakeholders to develop four equality objectives which will be embedded into Trust business plans for 2012 – 2013. These objectives have arisen from the work undertaken to assess how the Trust is progressing against the four goals in the Equality Delivery System. Our equality objectives are:
1. To improve the consistency and quality of data sources and how these feed into reporting and service improvement projects
2. To improve patient’s awareness of services available
3. To improve the way in which service users and carers are involved and consulted and how this is reported back to them
4. To have visible and competent leaders with the capability to deliver high quality services
We believe that these objectives comply with both the Equality Delivery System and our statutory duty under the specific duties of the Equality Act 2010.
Equality Data
This Trust has also collated a variety of information to demonstrate our compliance with the public sector equality duty and the outcomes in the Equality Delivery System. To look at the data we have collected see the links below.
As far as possible the Trust will capture relevant data by the ‘protected characteristics’ which are described in the Equality Act 2010 which are:
• Age; disability; gender reassignment; pregnancy/maternity; marriage/civil partnership; religion/belief; race (or ethnicity); sex (or gender); sexual orientation
National and Local Information
Why is equality data monitoring important
How does the Trust show due regard to:
The need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation
Advancing equality of opportunity
Fostering good relations
The Equality Delivery System
To find out how the Trust is progressing with the implementation of the NHS Equality Delivery System, to read about how the NHS Equality Delivery System will improve the experience of service users and carers and make a difference staff, or to comment on our work and make your views count please click here.