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:

  • We will ensure our current employees and future talent have fair opportunities and access to jobs and career progression resulting in improved representation of diverse groups at all levels of the organisation, including board.
  • We will educate and develop our leaders and staff to improve understanding of racism, discrimination and cultural competence to deliver a step change in the experience of our staff and patients.
  • We will improve our use of patient data and patient experience to drive improvements in access and health inequalities, for patients from diverse communities.

Progress on the equality objectives above will be published on an annual basis.  These objectives will run from April 2020 to March 2024. 

NWAS completed a previous cycle of equality objectives in March 2020.  The information and progress made then can be found in the Annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report.

Equality delivery system – measuring tool

The EDS2 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 (EDS2) on the NHS England website.

‘NWAS uses the EDS2 framework to measure progress towards equality for staff and patients.  The most recent update of progress against this framework can be found in the Annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report 2019-2020.