Equality and diversity

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.

Sandra Sharp and Folashade Yusuf Adewuyi

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.

Kallum and Justina 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

For workforce

The workforce objectives are owned within the Workforce Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ED) Team. This will largely stay the same and reflect the work of the Nobody Left Behind Strategy. The objectives proposed for 2024/25 are:

Objective 1: To promote fair Recruitment, Promotion and Retention of staff.

Objective 2: To improve wellbeing of staff by eliminating discrimination and victimisation.

Objective 3: To improve the experience and career progression of staff with protected characteristics.

For patients and services

Given the significant change across NHS and the way in the trust is internally managing this agenda for patients and services, the objectives have been refreshed for the next four years. The previous objectives have been fulfilled and the objectives for 2024/25 are outlined below.

The health inequalities objectives are owned with the Public Health and Prevention Directorate and lead within the health inequalities team.

Objective 4: Putting Communities First: Development of a health inequalities Strategy with operational delivery of action plans.

Objective 5: Putting Communities First: To undertake two place-based health inequalities projects that builds delivery to meet community need.

Objective 6: Better Patient Experience: To complete the interpreting and translation procurement process, and implement with contract monitoring against clear performance measures.

Equality and diversity statement

Introduction

The Trust believes that promoting equality and valuing diversity is essential to achieving its mission to provide excellent healthcare and to promote a healthy community. We recognise that we provide services to an increasingly multi-cultural and diverse community and we are committed to ensure that:

we treat all individuals fairly
we treat people dignity and respect
the healthcare we provide is open to all
we provide a safe, supportive and welcoming environment for patients, patients’ families and staff

Our commitment

In particular we will:

make sure that our services and the information we provide is accessible to disabled people, so that they can get the services they need and be involved in decisions
make sure that our services are culturally sensitive and responsive to meet the diverse needs of our patients, families and staff, so that they feel welcomed and
assess the needs and impact on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people when producing policies and strategies and developing our health services, so that we don’t disadvantage people using our services or working for us
respect and be sensitive to our patients' and families’ religious and spiritual beliefs in delivering healthcare, so that their spiritual needs are met
be aware of the differing needs of our male and female patients and develop responsive services that meet those needs appropriately
promote age equality so that our policies, practices and attitudes of our staff are not discriminating against patients based upon their age
make sure our staff are aware that health inequalities disproportionately affect people living in more deprived communities and that other factors such as poverty, mental health, homelessness and language barriers will affect peoples’ access to services. This will help reduce the barriers to people using our
Challenge discriminatory behaviour towards our patients, their families and our staff

Our Public Sector Equality Duty

As an NHS trust we are subject to both the general public sector duty set out in the Equality Act 2010 and the specific duties which came into law on the 10 September 2011 in England. In summary this means that when delivering our services we must:

eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010
advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

Advancing equality involves:

removing or minimising disadvantages experienced 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
encouraging people from protected groups to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low
taking steps to take account of disabled people's impairments and access requirements to meet different needs

Fostering good relations includes:

tackling prejudice and promoting understanding between people from different groups

Protected characteristics or groups

Compliance with our public sector duty may involve treating some people more favourably than others. The duty covers the following protected characteristics:

As an NHS employer we also need to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination against someone because of their marriage or civil partnership status.

Equality Delivery System 2 (EDS2) and Equality Analysis (EA)

To help the Trust to meet its public sector duty we use the Equality Delivery System 2 and Equality Analysis to ensure that equality considerations are reflected in the design of policies and the delivery of services and for these issues to be kept under review.

The Trust’s Equality and Diversity Steering Group monitors the Trust’s implementation of EDS2 and the process for carrying out EAs.

The Board is responsible for agreeing the Trust’s Equality and Diversity Statement and annual equality objectives.

Age

The Trust is committed to basing decisions about care and treatment on a proper assessment of an individual's needs. For example, a clinician should not refuse to refer a patient for a procedure or intervention based on their age alone but must consider their individual needs and physical condition.

However the Trust will take account of someone's age when it is right and beneficial to do so, for example by ensuring services:

are targeted at those who most need them
meet patients' requirements, such as allowing them to mix with their own age group

Disability - duty to make reasonable adjustments

A person has a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 if he or she has a physical or mental impairment and the impairment has a substantial and long- term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

In addition to considering issues around discriminatory behaviours and ensuring levels of respect and dignity are maintained, equality for disabled people may also mean changing the way in which services are delivered, providing extra equipment and/or the removal of physical barriers. This is the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

We are committed to making reasonable adjustments to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to a non-disabled person. This may involve offering the service in an alternative venue, providing the service in the person’s own home, providing a British Sign Language Interpreter, or offering a later or earlier appointment time. Any adjustments will be promoted in order to ensure that disabled people are aware of what is available.

If a patient, client, or service user believes that the Trust (or, a member of our staff) has unlawfully discriminated against them, harassed or victimised them in relation to the facilities or services, or public functions we provide, they can:

complain directly to us, using our complaints procedure
use someone else to help sort the situation out (an advocacy service)
make a claim in court

Whilst people have the right to make a claim, we would welcome the opportunity to resolve the issue if we can, via our complaints process.

Gender reassignment

The Trust recognises that transgender people can feel stigmatised and have often experienced harassment. Our policy is to accept people as the gender they present (and not to assume) and to treat people with sensitivity in order to promote their privacy and dignity at all times. When using our services any patient or service user undergoing gender reassignment will be addressed by the name and prefix they request. The Trust will take seriously any alleged harassment on grounds of gender reassignment. The Trust also recognises that under the Gender Recognition Act it is an offence to reveal an individual’s gender status without explicit and prior consent except where there is a medical or legal requirement to do so.

Pregnancy and maternity

The Trust undertakes to provide services that are sensitive to the needs of patients who are pregnant or who have recently given birth. We also recognise that pregnancy and maternity may affect a patient’s ability to attend medical appointments at certain times, and there may be the need to cancel an appointment at short notice due to being unexpectedly unwell. Therefore the Trust’s policy on contacting patients who ‘Do Not Attend’ will need to be sensitive to this and services will aim to be flexible.

Race and ethnicity

The Trust is committed to raising awareness and promoting understanding of the cultural differences of the diverse population we serve and ensuring that patients, their families and visitors are not discriminated against because of their race, ethnicity or nationality. Furthermore we will take seriously alleged harassment of patients, their families or visitors on grounds of race.

Services will need to be sensitive to the cultural differences that will directly affect a patient’s ability to participate in certain treatments or attend appointments, for example during festivals. The Trust will be sensitive to the need to respect cultural practices when delivering universal services such as Health Visiting.

The Trust is committed to ensuring that patients for whom English is an additional language are provided with access to an interpreter when needed. This may include both telephone and face to face interpreting. The Trust will provide patients with written translations where this is needed in order to protect the safety of a patient or to obtain a full understanding of a specific treatment.

Religion or belief

NHS services are available to patients of all faiths or none. No patient should be denied access to treatment on grounds of their religion or belief. The Trust has clinical policies in place regarding certain interventions that patients might refuse on grounds of religion or belief.

The Trust recognises that a person’s faith and their ability to observe their usual religious practice, is an important part of a person’s ability to recover from illness or to manage their long-term condition. Therefore we will make every effort to meet the expressed spiritual needs of in-patients and to provide flexible appointment systems to enable patients not to be disadvantaged due to a need to observe religious festivals or practices (for example Ramadan).

Sex (gender)

The Trust will respect a patient’s request to be seen by a clinician of the same sex, or a different sex, but this might in some cases lead to the patient waiting longer for an appointment where there are fewer clinicians available of the preferred gender.

The Trust recognises that in some circumstances it will be appropriate to provide care or a service for a single sex group of patients (eg single sex wards, men only sexual health clinics), in order to provide privacy and dignity or to comply with national regulations. This should not mean that patients experience a poorer service due to their sex.

Sexual orientation

The Trust is committed to inclusivity and being representative of the communities we serve as reflected in the positive images of lesbians, gay men and bisexual people in our promotional literature, on our website and in our magazine. The Trust will provide targeted health information to improve the uptake of services by people who traditionally are less likely to use a service, for example promoting cervical screening to lesbian women.

Where appropriate the Trust will provide services targeted to people of a particular sexual orientation to improve uptake of that service, for example a sexual health clinic for men who have sex with men.

Discrimination by association or perception

The Equality Act 2010 also protects people who are at risk of discrimination by association or perception. This could include, for example, a carer who looks after a disabled person.

The Trust has a Carers Involvement Strategy and a Commitment to Carers which sets out how we will involve the informal carers of our patients and service users.

Review

The Trust will review its statement on equality and diversity on a regular basis or sooner if there are changes needed due to regulation or legislation.