Our commitment to equality, diversity and human rights
As an employer for, and a provider of, health services in Kent, London and neighbouring counties, we take the issues of fairness, rights and equality very seriously.
We don’t just observe equality and diversity principles because we are required to. We recognise they greatly improve our ability to provide the services that we deliver.
We will continue to develop our staff and to strive to ensure accessible services for everyone in our communities.
While there are many legal requirements surrounding equalities, Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust independently recognises the importance of equality and diversity and the benefits that observing the principles bring.
Accessing healthcare can be an unsettling experience and we want you to feel fully respected and valued in your dealings with us.
We also recognise the value of our staff and their diversity and aim to ensure that our workforce is representative of the communities we serve. We understand that colleagues work better when they can be themselves and appreciate the quality, understanding and experience that they bring to our organisation.
Equality is written into our values framework, we ensure all of our staff receive training in the subject, we use equality analysis and equality and diversity is embedded into our policies. We use the Equality Delivery System to record and evidence the work we do and we publish our equality objectives on a regular basis.
We are consistently looking for opportunities to engage with our communities, to help us to plan and deliver services in a fair and equitable way.
Equality objectives
The Trust has four equality objectives:
Objective 1: to work with other NHS organisations, the voluntary sector and local authority to engage with people in order to promote health improvement and reduce health inequalities. This includes working with young people, people who are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, disabled people, LGBTQ people and carers.
Objective 2: using co-design principles to work with our patients and their families, our staff, other NHS organisations and the voluntary sector in order to improve access to services and patient and family experience of health care.
Objective 3: to support our staff to recruit and manage a diverse workforce and to create a work place where our staff feel they are able to be themselves.
Objective 4: to ensure that equality and diversity is embedded in the business of KCHFT.