Distribution of Business
Our Commitment to Equality
West Hertfordshire Hospitals publishes its equality objectives - 5 April 2012
West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust (WHHT) is required by the Equality Act 2010 (Public Sector Equality Duties (PSED) Regulations 2011 (section 3) to prepare and publish one or more specific and measurable equality objectives that will help to achieve the aims of the general equality duty by 6 April 2012, and at least every four years after that.
West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust is committed to ensuring equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights are central to the way we deliver healthcare services to our patients and how we support our staff.
Our aim is to eliminate health inequalities and promote equal access to appropriate and quality services.
Legislation
The Equality Act 2010: The Equality Act
The majority of the Equality Act provisions came into force in October 2010, with the remaining aspects due to be phased in up to 2013.
The Equality Act is replacing the existing anti-discrimination laws with a single Act. The Act is now a key part of the legal framework that underpins the way the NHS provides its services to patients and supports its staff. The Equality Act outlaws discrimination against patients or staff with the following protected characteristics:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender re-assignment
- Marriage and civil partnerships
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race (including nationality and ethnicity)
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
The Public Sector general duty (effective from 5 April 2011) seeks to provide additional protection from discrimination. There is also a requirement for public sector organisations to actively promote equality by ensuring that needs of both patient and staff groups which fall within the nine protected groups.
The Trust complies with the law and aims to continue developing better practice to ensure that:
- discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010 are eliminated with our Trust
- advance equality of opportunity between people who share different equality groups
- we foster good relations between different protected characteristic groups and those who are not within these groups.
The Trust has an Equality and Diversity Steering Group whose function is to ensure that equality issues are driven forward.
NHS Equality Delivery System (EDS)
A new tool has been developed to help the NHS understand how equality can drive improvements in patient care and strengthen the accountability of services to both patients and the public.
The EDS has been designed as an optional tool to support NHS commissioners and providers to deliver better outcomes for patients and communities and better working environments for staff, which are personal, fair and diverse. It will help ensure that everyone has a voice in how organisations are performing and where they could and should improve. This has been supported by Sir David Nicholson NHS Chief Executive and Chair of NHS Equality & Diversity Council.
For more information please contact:
Lesley Lopez – Head of Patient and Public Involvement
Tel: 01923 217803
Email: lesley.lopez@whht.nhs.uk
Useful Links
| West Herts Hospitals NHS Trust Equalities Framework | WHHT Equalities Framework |
| The Equality Act | The Equality Act |
| Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) | Equalities & Human Rights Commission |
| NHS Employers | NHS Employers equality and diversity pages |
| Department of Health | Equalities and Human Rights Bulletin |
| NHS Choices – Equality and Diversity | NHS Choices |
| Age | Age UK |
| Disability | Disability Alliance |
| Gender re-assignment | The Gender Trust |
| Marriage and civil partnerships | Marriage (Citizens Advice Bureau) Civil Partnerships (Citizens Advice Bureau) |
| Pregnancy and maternity | Pregnancy (NHS Choices) |
| Race (including nationality and ethnicity) | Race for Health |
| Religion or belief | EHRC |
| Sex | EHRC |
| Sexual Orientation | Stonewall |
| Mental health | Time to Change |
Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)
The public sector equality duty (section 149 of the Act) came into force on 5th April 2011. It applies to public bodies and others carrying out public functions. The duty supports good decision-making by ensuring public bodies consider how different people will be affected by their activities, helping them to deliver policies and services which are efficient and effective; accessible to all; and which meet different people’s needs.
The duty supports good decision making - it encourages public bodies to understand how different people will be affected by their activities, so that their policies and services are appropriate and accessible to all and meet different people’s needs. The equality duty therefore helps public bodies to deliver the Government's overall objectives for public services.
Specific duties have been placed on public bodies to help them perform the general equality duty better. They do this by requiring public bodies to be transparent about how they are responding to the general equality duty – requiring them to publish relevant, proportionate information showing compliance with the equality duty, and to set equality objectives. The Government believes that public bodies should be accountable to their service users. Publishing information about decision-making and the equality data which underpins those decisions will open public bodies up to informed public scrutiny. It will give the public the information they need to challenge public bodies and hold them to account for their performance on equality. Moreover, knowing that such information will be published will help to focus the minds of decision-makers on giving proper consideration to equality issues.
West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust has now published its compliance report to take account of the duties detailed above and will continue to update this section over the coming months. The Trust is currently implementing the Equality Delivery System (EDS) which will affect our processes in the future.
For the specific duty West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust will:
- publish information to demonstrate compliance with the general duty by 31/01/12
- publish data on the make up of the workforce by 31/01/12
- publish data on those affected by the Trust's policies and procedures by 31/01/12
- publish one or more equality objectives covering a 4 year period by 06/04/12
To see our compliance report please click the link below and direct any comments to Lesley Lopez Head of Patient & Public Involvement on 01923 291662 or by email:
lesley.lopez@whht.nhs.uk
