Equality and Diversity

Our Commitment to Equality & Diversity

We recognise that to deliver good equality practice for everyone, equality and diversity must be embedded within our day to day running of the hospital. Making sure that this is at the heart of our organisation is essential to enable us to successfully fulfill our role and duties to the patients we treat, and as an employer.

It is important that we ensure the needs of patients, visitors and staff are met when designing and delivering our services irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnerships, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation.

Our progress towards meeting this objective is monitored by the Trust Board throughout the year. Specific actions include establishing a Fairness and Equality Action Group for staff.

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) is set out within the Equality Act 2010 and details 

Aim 1: eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct 
Aim 2: advance equality of opportunity between people who share protected characteristics
Aim 3: foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who don't

The Equality Delivery System (EDS2) is a national framework developed by NHS England to help NHS organisations improve their equality and diversity performance. The trust has embraced the EDS2 and developed an Equality Standard to integrate this across the organisation.

Equality Information

The law places a responsibility on the Trust to show that we have considered equality by ensuring that we:

• Remove or minimizing disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics
• Taking steps to meet the needs of people from protected groups where these are different from the needs of other people.

The Isle of Wight is a diverse place to live and work. Based on mid-2010 figures the population of the Island was 140,500 with a gender break-down of:

• Males approx 68,000
• Females approx 72,000

Compared with the South East Region, the Island has a greater proportion of residents over the age of 65 years and fewer younger residents.

Further Equality and Diversity facts and figures can be found on the Isle of Wight Council website.

 How does equality and diversity relate to my care?
The department of health has laid out a clear ambition for the NHS which is to be a health service that is responsive to the needs of and accountable to all members of all communities. A service that delivers high quality care for all, that takes appropriate account of individual differences. A service that commits to the ethos of 'everyone counts' and equality is integral to quality. This applies to all healthcare services provided or commissioned by the NHS. It applies to staff as well as patients and we support this ambition.

Analysis of relevant data and information helps us to continue towards providing healthcare services that are fair to all and ensure an inclusive environment for staff. Furthermore, information gained from involvement events on the diversity agenda and engagement with those who share a protected characteristic, will inform the development of equality objectives for our organisation.

Equality Objective
The specific duty of the Equality Act 2010 placed on public bodies a requirement to set and publish specific and measureable Equality Objectives by 6^th April 2012.  Once set these objectives should be reviewed at intervals of no greater than four years as well as report progress against these objectives on an annual basis. 

The Trust’s Equality Objective links to our Strategic Objectives:

To provide the best patient, safety, clinical effective and patient experience

Build productive relationships with people and organisations to improve health and achieve potential

Be a excellent Foundation Trust; developing our people, valuing interdependence, raising the bar and knowing ‘that’ll do’ never does