Equality and diversity

Commitment statement

The Equality Act (2010) has brought together and streamlined many strands of previous equality legislation in England, Scotland and Wales. The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat someone.

The public sector equality duty (PSED) came into force across Great Britain on 5 April 2011. It means that public bodies have to consider all individuals when carrying out their day-to-day work – in shaping policy, in delivering services and in relation to their own employees.

It also requires that public bodies have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate discrimination

• advance equality of opportunity

• foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities

The Act extends protection to the nine protected characteristic groups: race, gender, disability, age, maternity and pregnancy, religion or belief, gender identity, marriage and civil partnerships and sexual orientation. The general equality duty places a requirement on us to publish information that demonstrates compliance with the duty by 31 January 2012. A Trust Board paper which outlines our approach and explains more about the Act, duties and timescales is available here.

The specific duties require us to publish our equality objectives by the 6 April. Click here to see our equality objectives. These have been developed based on feedback resulting from involvement and engagement with patients and staff as a result of implementing the equality delivery system (EDS).

On 1 April 2015, NHS England launched the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) for all NHS organisations.  The Standard is now mandatory and is included as part of the NHS standard contract.

The WRES has been developed to address workforce inequalities relating to (Black & Minority Ethnic) BME staff across the NHS workforce.  It draws on research that provides evidence of a less favourable experience and in some cases, disadvantage. It highlights the important links between the consequences of this and patient care. This is a national issue which the NHS is keen to see addressed. From 1 April 2015, all NHS organisations are required to demonstrate through the nine point Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) metric how they are addressing race equality issues in a range of staffing areas.  Click here to see our metric.

How does this relate to my care?

The Department of Health has laid out a clear ambition for the NHS which is to be a health service that is responsive to the needs of and accountable to all members of all communities. A service that delivers high quality care for all, that takes appropriate account of individuals' age, disability status, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, sex and gender identity. In summary, a service where 'everyone counts' and where equality is integral to quality. This applies to all healthcare services provided or commissioned by the NHS. It applies to staff as well as patients and we support this ambition.

The NHS Equality and Diversity Council (EDC) is co-chaired by Simon Stevens Chief Executive of NHS England and Joan Saddler from NHS Confederation; with a diverse membership made up from across the NHS, partner organisations, as well as from patient, carer, and staff groups.  The purpose of the EDC is to help shape the future of the healthcare system from an equality, diversity and inclusion perspective; focusing upon improving access, experience, and health outcomes for all patients, service users, carers and the NHS workforce.

The EDC has undergone a recent review of its form, function and impact. A key aim was to ensure that the work of the EDC going forward would be more aligned to the objectives set out in the Next Steps on the NHS Long Term Plan.  The first meeting of the refreshed EDC took place in July 2017, where members agreed the following three high-level themes for the EDC work programme:

1. Enabling leadership capability and capacity – eternalising asset; growing new leaders; setting core local objectives and priorities and focussing upon bold aspirations; a diverse and representative workforce being one of the key enablers.

2. Embedding levers and accountability– developing and embedding enablers to help facilitate continuous improvements on equality, linking with the overarching concept of ‘quality’ and including a focus upon:

• Drivers for NHS (key objectives in the Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View);

• Influencing metrics and links to policy levers e.g. Quality Accounts.

3. Supporting the system architecture (cross-cutting theme)– mainstreaming equality and diversity into the new healthcare architecture - Strategic Transformation Programmes (STPs), Integrated Care System (ICSs) – highlighting the ‘enablers’ for leadership and levers/accountability:

• Better use of equality data and intelligence (EDS2)

• Role of Healthwatch – co-production and meaningful engagement

Focusing upon improving access, experience and health outcomes for all patients, service users, carers and the NHS workforce is at the heart of what we are aspiring to achieve at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. Work undertaken to develop and implement our three strategic priorities and our CARE Values is aligned with these key principles.

How does this relate to my job?

We also have our core human resource principles which apply to all our staff. The Trust is committed to employment practices which aim to make sure that all staff feel valued and are treated with dignity and respect in an inclusive environment which acknowledges difference and celebrates diversity.

The Trust continues to strive to improve its quality of care for its patients with the aim of providing a positive patient experience

• The Trust works to continually improve its employment practices and advance equal opportunities

• The Trust sees equality and diversity as central to this work and core to our business

• The Trust is committed to good practice in equality and diversity and meeting its statutory duties.

The pages that follow demonstrate a range of information that the organisation has published to help show how we meet the requirements of the general equality duty which is broken down into three aims. We have tried to demonstrate which of the aims, each piece of information relates to and this information is on the front sheets.

Analysis of relevant data and information helps us to continue towards providing healthcare services that are fair to all and ensure an inclusive environment for staff. Furthermore, information gained from involvement events on the diversity agenda and engagement with those who share a protected characteristic, will inform the development of equality objectives for our organisation.