Equality and Diversity

We are committed to promoting equality and embracing diversity and to shaping our services around the needs and preferences of our patients.

Our aim is to ensure everyone with an interest in our Trust including the public, members of staff, patients, clinicians and commissioners, have a clear view of what we are seeking to achieve and equality and diversity will be the thread that weaves through the whole of our business. We continue our commitment to eliminating inequalities in both patient experience and health outcomes while continuing to maintain and improve patient quality and safety.

What the law says

The Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act requires equal treatment in access to employment as well as private and public services, regardless of the protected characteristics which are:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation.

The Public Sector Equality Duty

This requires organisations, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act
• Advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
• Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

This will be achieved by:

• Removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics
• Taking steps to meet the needs of people with certain protected characteristics where these are different from the needs of other people
• Encouraging people with certain protected characteristics to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low.

The specific duties are to:

• Publish information to demonstrate compliance with the general equality duty
• Publish equality objectives to further any of the aims of the general equality duty.

Our performance

You can read our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Statement on our Resources page. If you’d like a copy of our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy, please email [email protected].

Contact us

Karl Portz is our Equality and Diversity Lead.
[email protected]
03033 305518

Esther Dame is our Equality, Diversity ＆ Inclusion Project Officer. [email protected] 07591 989830 or call the Organisational Development (OD) office on 03033 305635.