Carrying out an equality and health inequality analysis can help identify people who experience the greatest health needs, those who face barriers to accessing services and to participation, and those groups of people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 who may be affected by a particular plan, proposal or decision. - NHS England 2017

Our Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Strategy enables us to make sure that everyone in the community has the opportunity to be heard and give their opinions about local healthcare services. This helps us continue to have open, honest and two-way conversations – at times and in ways that are appropriate for our stakeholders.

The Equality Act 2010 covers nine protected characteristics of groups of people who are specifically offered protection. Every person has one or more of the protected characteristics, meaning that the Act protects everyone against unfair discrimination.

Protected characteristic	Protection
Age	A person belonging to a particular age or age group.  People of different ages including children, younger and older people.
Disability	People who have a disability or a physical or mental impairment and it has substantial and long term adverse effect on an individual’s ability to carry out normal daily living activities.
Gender reassignment	People who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone a process (or part of a process) to reassign their sex by changing physiological or other physical attributes of sex.
Marriage and civil partnership	People who are married or in a civil partnership.
Pregnancy and maternity	Women who are having or have recently had a baby.
Race	People characterised by shared ethnicity, colour, nationality (including citizenship) ethnic or national origins.
Religion or belief	People with or without a religion or belief.
Sex	Men and women.
Sexual orientation	People whose sexual orientation is towards people of the same sex as themselves (gay or lesbian); people of the opposite sex (heterosexual); or people of both sexes (bisexual).

 

We regularly review our progress against our five equality objectives:

• Provide accessible, appropriate information to meet a range of communication styles and needs.
• Improve the reporting and use of equality data to inform equality analyses.
• To strengthen stakeholder engagement and partnership working.
• To be a great employer with a diverse, engaged and well supported workforce.
• Ensure our leadership is inclusive and effective at promoting equality.

Sustainability

We have been recognised for excellent sustainability reporting by the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU), NHS Improvement and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).

High quality reporting on sustainability is recognised as a fundamental way in which organisations can demonstrate their commitment to embedding environmental, social and financial sustainability.

Good sustainability reporting is widely recognised as including the following areas:

• Leadership and engagement – Board level, staff and community
• Resources - such as energy, water and waste
• Travel - including staff travel, patient transport, business travel
• Procurement – including local, community and ethical procurement
• Adaptation and transformation
• New models of care

The NHS Long Term Plan further strengthens the commitment of the NHS as a system leader in embedding sustainable development across the organisation. The Long Term Plan sets clear targets for sustainability; carbon, air pollution and a mandate to in particular, reduce wastage and over reliance on single use plastics.

We are committed to shaping a more sustainable NHS by:

• Developing a ‘whole systems’ approach to commissioning.
• Understanding our role in improving the sustainability of healthcare.
• Using the commissioning cycle to increase sustainability and implement the NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy.

To help us achieve our objectives we have developed a Sustainability Development Management Plan.

Analysing the impact of our plans and decisions

Equality Impact Analysis

We want to be sure that the decisions we take make a real, positive difference to our population.  That is why we measure the impact of our decisions, strategies, policies and any change to services through an Equality Impact Analysis.

Sustainability Impact Assessments

Sustainability Impact Assessments help to estimate the likely sustainability implications of the implementation of a policy, project or decision.

When sustainability implications are identified, steps can be taken to amend the proposed policy, project or decision or adjust the way it is implemented.

Quality and equality impact assessment

We use a Quality and Equality Impact Assessment tool to assess and measure the potential impact of proposed service changes or reviews alongside the need for patient and public involvement. This work covers five key areas.

	Impact rating
Safety	patient safety
Effectiveness	clinical effectiveness of patient care
Experience	patient experience of care delivery
Other impacts	impact of the proposal on other services, patient groups, staff or reputation of the organisation. This includes consideration of if the legal duty to involve patients and the public applies.
Equality and diversity	of people in a specific group as outlined in the Equality Act 2010 and also including other hard to reach groups. Quality Impact Assessments

Our policies, plans and strategies for the above work, along with the associated documents are available to download from the publications section.

Supporting York Pride 2020

NHS Rainbow Badge

Find out more about our commitment to equality through the NHS Rainbow Badge scheme here.