Equality Objectives 2015 & NHS Patient Experience Framework

The Equality Act 2010 places certain responsibilities on public sector organizations such as hospitals.

These are:

• To eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimization
• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not
• Foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not
• To publish equality objectives at least every four years
• Provide information to demonstrate their compliance with the equality duty at least annually

Currently the public sector Equality Duty applies to all public authorities, including NHS organizations, so covers acute hospitals, primary care trusts, strategic health authorities, mental health and community trusts, ambulance trusts and all foundation trusts.

So what does this mean for our Practice – well at present, there is no obligation for us to publish Equality Objectives. However we take our responsibilities seriously and share the ethos of this initiative. Therefore we offer this commitment to our staff and patients:

“that we will not discriminate against any person on the grounds of”:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race – this includes ethnic or national origins, colour or nationality
• Religion or belief – this includes lack of belief
• Gender
• Sexual orientation

Furthermore the practice, in accordance with the Equality Act, also explicitly recognizes that disabled peoples’ needs may be different from those of non-disabled people.

For example, our practice premises are audited each year to ensure that we comply with the requirements of the Equality Duty Act. So we provide disabled car parking spaces, lowered section of our reception desk, hearing loop and wheelchair accessibility. In addition, the Practice Manager has attended specific training around the needs of patients who are partially sighted or blind, those with learning disabilities patients who are hearing impaired. This training has been cascaded through the staff team. The records of those patients are duly noted in order to prompt the reception team to offer additional help as required.

The practice has a range of policies that apply to all staff and visitors to the building, which cover every aspect of our duties under the Equality Act. These ensure that all our staff are treated fairly and without discrimination in any form.

For our patients, we will not discriminate in the offer of admission to our practice list, treatment or service. The only limitation (not covered by the Equality Duty Act) is that of geographical location. This is to ensure that we are able to offer a full service, so meeting the Health & Social Care Bill requirement to provide local services for local people.

Through Solihull CCG, the local clinical commissioning group, we will try to ensure that any decisions about policies, service improvement or implementation take account of disabled peoples’ needs through appropriate consultation. When Solihull CCG became a legal entity in its own right, it keeps a responsibility under the Act, to publish its own Equality Policy and Objectives.

In order to do this they are basing their objectives on the equality information that they collect. For example, the police authority when reviewing its policy on hate crime finds that 68% of all hate crime reported is described as being homophobic. It would therefore make sense for the police authority to publish an objective on how it is to address hate crime.

For us, we do not have this style of data and therefore, apart from making a general commitment to you, our patients, it is hard for us to be able to set specific objectives. We do take into account all comments, suggestions and complaints when reviewing our service provision. We would encourage any patient who feels that we have not met our commitment, to contact the Practice Manager to discuss their concerns. We are fully committed to improving all aspects of the services we offer, but are unable to do this without your help and feedback. If you would like to take this a step further you are very welcome to join our Patient Participation Group.

We are also committed to supporting the NHS Patient Experience Framework. In October 2011, the NHS Quality team agreed on some measures to help the NHS measure patient experience of services. The framework or objectives gives details on the main areas where patient experience matters most. These are

•  Respect for patient values, preference and needs which include dignity, privacy, an awareness of quality of life issues and to ensure the patient shares in the decision process about their treatment – In the Health & Social Care Bill this is called “no decision about me without me”
•  That NHS services will coordinate and integrate with each other to provide you with a smooth transfer between services, for example when your GP refers you to a hospital consultant
•  Information, communication and education – so to make sure we tell other clinical staff enough about you for them to be able to treat you effectively, tell you your results and treatments and help you to look after yourself
• Physical comfort – this means things like helping patients with pain management and relief to ensuring our practice premises are clean and comfortable
• Emotional support – to help you understand your condition and treatment so that you do not feel as anxious or frightened, and look at the impact of any illness, on you, your family and your finances
• Welcoming the involvement of family and friends on whom you as a patient might rely, for example a carer
• Transition and continuity – this probably applies mainly to hospital but for your GP it would mean supporting you to becoming independent and self caring after either an illness or operation, or perhaps having been diagnosed with a long term condition such as diabetes
• Access to care – how easy it is to contact us by telephone, book appointments and even how long you have to wait to be called by the doctor for your appointment. We already undertake patient surveys every year around this topic and are always striving to improve.——————————————————-