Equality for our patients does not mean treating everyone the same – everyone’s needs and concerns are different. It’s about ensuring all patients, no matter their background, have the opportunity to access the services we provide and an equal chance to influence the way we deliver these services.
We are committed to assessing how we perform in terms of equality and diversity and do this by benchmarking our performance against a set of equality objectives for our workforce and service delivery:
- To continue to improve the diverse representation of the workforce with particular focus on improving levels of employment from black minority ethnicity (BME) communities.
- To improve levels of representation of women in operational management and leadership positions.
- To deliver improvements in staff experience of bullying, harassment and violence at work as measured through annual staff survey results.
- To map gaps in available patient data and identify options for improvement.
- To map the current provision of services that are offered to us and that we offer, to appropriately manage patients presenting with dementia.
In 2011, the NHS Equality Delivery System (EDS) was launched by the national Equality and Diversity Council. A refreshed EDS -known as EDS2 – was implemented in 2013.
The EDS is a tool which aims to support NHS organisations so that they understand where there may be inequality in service delivery. This is so that all patients have equal access to healthcare and a quality of care that doesn’t depend on personal characteristics such as age, gender, race or religion. You can find out more about the Equality Delivery System (EDS) on the NHS England website.