Delivering Personal, Fair, Diverse and Inclusive Practice.
May 2017
This statement will be made available to new employees at induction; and to all job applicants at the same time as other documentation, e.g. job description and person specification and used where only a short summary/statement of the Policy is required. Agency workers, volunteers etc. and providers of goods/services should also be provided with a copy.
Equality and Inclusion Statement
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Introduction
The Trust’s Vision is to
“Deliver personalised care of the highest quality, with the best possible outcomes for users and carers, empowering them to remain independent”
This can only be fulfilled if we recognise the diversityand differing individual needs of the people within the local communities. The Trust is committed to providing health and social care services and employment, whichare equitable and free from discrimination and to upholding the values of dignity and respect for our staff, patients, their families and carers.
The Partnership’s Trust vision is centred on providing high quality, personalised, integrated and efficient care to service users and carers of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. Our vision is underpinned by our core values and supported by two clear strategic goals that will drive our strategy:
Improving Quality
Improving Efficiency
This Equality Statement sets out our commitments to workforce and service equality, access, experience and outcomes.
Our Equality Commitment
The Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998 provide the legal framework within which the Trust operates its equality governance. Equality and improvement of health inequalities is fundamental to all aspects of the NHS. At a national level, the Health & Social Care Act 2012, Accessible Information Standard 2015, NHS England, the NHS Mandate, the NHS Operating Framework, the NHS Constitution and the Five Year Forward View all highlight the need to eliminate discrimination in services, improve accessibility and reduce health inequalities for all.
The Equality Delivery System 2 (EDS2) is a NHS governance framework by which the Trust can demonstrate how it is performing on issues of equality and health inequalities to our patients, staff, communities and commissioners. We also have responsibilities under the Public Sector Equality Duty element of the Equality Act 2010 and we demonstrate how we are meeting these by our yearly publication of our compliance summary. Equality objectives are decided by a combination of these processes and are published every four years, with yearly reviews. The WRES (Workforce Race Equality Standard) will further support race equality within the workplace highlighting areas of good practice and for development. The Trust is also involved in supporting the development of the proposed Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) which will further support disability equality within the workplace highlighting areas of good practice and for development.
The EDS2 will be graded and presented to the Trust on an annual basis and therefore this statement will be reviewed to ensure it remains fit for purpose at the end of theannual EDS2 process. The Trust has established 4 Equality Objectives and continues to develop a program of actions to deliver each objective. The Equality and Inclusion Strategy and associated action plans will be published on the Trust’s website.
Equality Objective 1:
The Trust will deliver effectively on the Deaf Charter Pledges by working in partnership with local community groups. The Deaf Charter Forum is developing an operational plan which will support this objective. This objective links with the EDS2 Goals 1, 2 & 3.
Equality Objective 2:
The Trust will achieve Trust wide compliance to the Accessible Information Standard (AIS). The AIS steering group is developing an operational plan which will support this objective. This objective links with EDS2 Goals 1, 2 & 3.
Equality Objective 3:
The Trust will be an Employer of Choice through increasing its diversity profile and staff reporting a good experience of working within the Trust. The Trust believes this will be achieved by the effective delivery of the WRES and WDES action plans established in the Trust and by utilising the support of the staff support networks to become ambassadors/ champions. This objective links with EDS2 Goals 3 & 4.
Equality Objective 4:
The Trust will deliver services that are responsive to people’s needs through the improvement of capturing and recording equality data for service uptake and using the information to inform service development.This objective extends to the use of equality data within the Trust’s Equality Analysis Process and within service improvement and re-designs/activities. This objective links with EDS2 Goals 1, 2 & 3.
The Equality Statement is thereforeembeds and builds on Trust’s vision:
“The Trustis committed to providing health and social care services and employment, which are equitable and free from discrimination and to upholding the values of dignity and respect for our staff, patients, their families and carers.”
To maintain our commitment to the Equality Statement in all that the Trust does, we must ensure that all mainstream business processes incorporate a commitment to ensuring that these processes are fair, free from discrimination and encourage diversity. This applies to both our workforce and our service provision. This is evident within our Equality Analysis process which is integral to the Trusts Procedural Documents Development Policy.
This commitment covers all those from a protected characteristic group as defined by the Equality Act 2010 and those defined in the Inclusion Health groups (Social Care Task Force and Department of Health publication 2010):
- Equality Act 2010: age; gender; disability; race; religion or belief; sexual orientation; pregnancy and maternity; marriage and civil partnership and gender reassignment
- “Inclusion Health”:People who are Homeless, Misuse drugs, live in poverty, long term unemployed, geographically isolated etc.
To make our vision a reality, we are determined to promote equality of access to information, services, premises and training and identify and eliminate any inequalities in everything we do. We also reaffirm our commitment to ensure that our patients and our own staff are treated (and staff treat each other) fairly, with dignity and respect and staff are each afforded equality of opportunity to develop to their full potential.
Workforce Commitment to Equality
From a workforce perspective, every policy contains a commitment to equality and all policies have an equality analysis to identify any positive or negative impact before being formally signed off. The equality analysis includes impact on staff, service users and partners. It supports the positive action approach to staff with disability and recorded reasonable adjustments in place at work. The commitment is to support the workforce to fulfil their potential in the workplace and report a positive employment experience.
Goals 3 and 4 of the Equality Delivery System 2 identify key areas of workforce processes that must comply with equality commitments, such as recruitment and selection, workforce planning, training and development and pay systems.
Of key importance is that our workforce understands the need to be respectful of and not discriminate against each other and the different communities we serve. Various policies reference the expected standards of behaviour and the consequences of acting in a discriminatory manner, such as all the clinical and support staff codes of conduct, the Disciplinary Policy, the Grievance Policy and the Dignity and Respect at Work Policy. Likewise, for those staff experiencing discrimination from patients, their families or members of the public a policy can be used to raise complaints.
All workforce policies are available on the Trust’s internal website. The Trust is committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of and meets the needs of the local community. The aim of this statement is to make equality and diversity, inclusion and Human Rights part of everything we do. To make this happen:
- The Trust is committed to building a workforce which is valued and whose diversity reflects the communities it serves, enabling it to deliver the best possible health and social care service to those communities.
- Everyone who works in the Trust, or applies to work in the Trust will be treated fairly and valued equally. All conditions of service and job requirements are intended to fit with the needs of the service and those who work in it, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex (gender) or sexual orientation, domestic, circumstances, social and employment status, HIV status, gender reassignment or political affiliation or trade union membership.
- The Trust strives to be a place where people want to work and to be a leader in good employment practice.
- Action will be taken to ensure that equality is monitored to support the legal compliance (Public Sector Equality Duty) and to identify any patterns of over/under representation.
- Appropriate equality and inclusion training will be provided for all staff across all protected groups in relation to inclusive practices in employment and service delivery.
- The Trust will work with the Trade Unions and voluntary and statutory organisations to progress equality and inclusion within the Trust.
- Everyone who works in the Trust will be aware of this statement, its contents and their responsibilities in relation to Equality and Inclusion via the Behaviours Framework and Trust Values.
Service Commitment to Equality
All services undertake an equality analysis to ensure that they are provided in ways that promote equality. New projects include an equality analysis within the Project Implementation Document. The Quality Framework incorporates the Equality objectives and commitment of the Trust. The Trust will provide services and information that is fair, accessible and supports the individual to make informed decisions to manage their health and social care.
Goals 1 and 2 of the Equality Delivery System 2 are patient focused, and are driven by patient and partner engagement and the evidence we have to provide to demonstrate patient satisfaction and our commitment to progress on reducing health inequalities.
Any patient, member of their family or community member that feels they have been unfairly treated or discriminated against, can raise their concerns via the Trust’s complaint process. Patient surveys are used to assess service user experiences resulting in local team/department action as required. Good practice and experiences are also shared via the Trust’s staff newsletter to recognise good practice. The Trust will publish its Quality accounts each year highlighting its user involvement, feedback and complaints.
By using the compliance report for the PSED we analyse on a yearly basis the profiles of our patients against the population profiles. Our Public Sector Equality Duty Compliance Summary and the Equality Delivery System 2 Framework will give detailed explanations of the various ways we meet our equality responsibilities.
The Equality and Inclusion work and associated compliance and progress reports can be found on the Trust’s website:
Contact the Equality and Inclusion Manager:Mrs Balwinder (Baz) Kaur
Tel: 0300 123 1161 ext. 2825
Text: 07515191603. Email:
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