Our Commitment to Equality and Diversity
We believe that healthcare services should respond to the diverse requirements of everyone we serve in Tameside & Glossop and beyond. We are committed to improving the health of our local population and reducing inequalities in healthcare provision.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is the building block for compassionate care. Achieving diversity in our workforce and inclusivity as our ethos is not ‘an optional extra’ but a ‘must have’ for all NHS health and care providers. The quality of patient experience cannot be separated from the quality of staff experience. The inequalities in workforce diversity can also not be divorced from the inequalities of health outcomes.
We believe that the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda is central to everything we do and in building a workforce that is truly representative of the local community that we serve. In turn we believe that in building a truly representative workforce, we will increase the talent pool from which we recruit and build services that are responsive to the needs of the local community.
Equality is about ensuring everybody has an equal opportunity, and is not treated less favourably, because of a particular characteristic. Equality of opportunity is about ensuring everybody has an equal chance to take up opportunities and also to make full use of the opportunities on offer and to fulfil their potential.
Diversity is about taking account of the differences between people and groups of people, and placing a positive value on those differences. Diversity is about celebrating and valuing how different we all are. This is strongly linked with promoting human rights and freedoms, based on principles such as dignity and respect. Diversity is about recognising, valuing and taking account of people's different backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and experiences, and encouraging and using those differences to create a productive and effective workforce.
As a public authority, the Trust has a legal requirement to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity foster good relations.The Equality Act provides protection to all staff, patients and visitors from discrimination. It is unlawful to discriminate because of:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender Reassignment
- Marriage and Civil Partnership Status
- Pregnancy and Maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual Orientation
The Trust Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (2023-2026) sets out the Trust’s three year equality objectives:
- Inclusive Recruitment: Being an inclusive employer enabling all talent to successfully apply for roles, by recognising and removing barriers to employment
- Career Progression For All: Improving and investing into our talent pipeline removing barriers to career progression so individuals can thrive in a career that they love
- Our Colleague Experience: Recognising and understanding the different experiences of all of our colleagues , proactively working to improve those experiences where there are differentials
- Embedding and Mainstreaming EDI: Putting EDI at the heart of everything we do and building EDI into all our employment related policies, processes and systems in a meaningful way
Employee networks have great potential to shape the culture and behaviours of their organisations. By tapping the ideas, passion and knowledge of people who work there, effective networks can help both to create change in organisations, and to support leaders and managers in implementing it. Staff networks play a key part in the planning and implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives across our organisation, whilst allowing us to increase our understanding of equality issues amongst our staff members.
At Tameside and Glossop ICFT we have invested in three employee equality networks:
- SIREN
- DAWN
- LGBTQ+ network
SIREN
Our SIREN network has been created to ensure that we acknowledge and address the needs of our BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) staff members, by helping us to challenge inequality and discrimination. Our SIREN network aims to create a sense of belonging by providing a safe forum to network, socialise, share, question, challenge and receive support and advice in relation to race equality.
DAWN
Our DAWN network brings together disabled staff, and those with long term health conditions, in a safe, confidential and informal environment to share knowledge and experiences whilst working with the organisation to raise awareness of disability inclusion, assist in the removal of obstacles and barriers, and effect meaningful change.
LGBTQ+
Our LGBTQ+ network acts as a voice for all staff in our organisation who identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. The network aims to create a safe, inclusive and environment that encourages respect and equality, whilst helping us to recognise and promote sexual orientation equality and gender identity equality in our workplace.
Effective equality monitoring is an important tool for measuring performance and progress towards equality and diversity goals and in ensuring a truly inclusive organisation. In accordance with our statutory requirements, and in order to effectively monitor our progress against our equality objectives, the Trust annual Equality Monitoring Report, published annually provides equality information across a range of indicators.
The Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) has been developed via NHS England as a tool to measure improvements in the workforce with respect to Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) staff. The WRES tool comprises a total of nine indicators split across Workforce Data, National NHS Staff Survey and Trust Board Representation.
At Tameside and Glossop ICFT we are committed to addressing any inequalities that exist for staff and welcome the WRES as a tool to show, transparently, where improvements may be needed so as to establish and maintain inclusive workplaces for all.
The Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) provides the first review of our workforce that relates to the workplace representation and career experiences of disabled staff. The detailed data analysis and evidence base has allowed the Trust to benchmark against 10 WDES metrics which enables the Trust to compare the workplace and career experiences of disabled and non-disabled staff. This baseline data and analysis will be used as a measuring tool to enable the Trust to understand where progress has taken place and where improvements need to be made.
Making a difference for disabled staff
The WDES is important, because research shows that a motivated, included and valued workforce helps to deliver high quality patient care, increased patient satisfaction and improved patient safety. We are keen to improve the staff experience for staff who have a disability/long term condition.
The WDES enables us to better understand the experiences of our disabled staff and supports positive change for all existing employees by creating a more inclusive environment for disabled people working and seeking employment at Tameside & Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust.
You can view the Trust's most up to date Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) report.
In order to assess how we are doing in relation to Equality & Diversity, the Trust has implemented the NHS Equality Delivery System (EDS). This is a performance equality framework designed by the Department of Health to demonstrate how NHS trusts meet their public sector equality duty and work with stakeholders from across the protected characteristics to measure equality outcomes.
The Trust has undertaken Grading events against a number of EDS Standards:
- Better health outcomes
- Improving patient access
- Representative and supportive workforce
- Inclusive leadership
In November 2016 the Trust held a grading assessment involving Governors and external stakeholders (from local community groups and the CCG) to help assess ourselves against two of the 4 goals. We were assessed against the “better health outcomes” and “improved patient access and experience” as achieving or developing against the standards. In July 2017 we repeated this exercise assessing ourselves against “representative and supportive workforce” and “inclusive leadership” and we were assessed as ‘achieving’ against the standards for both.
Employers with 250 employees and over will need to publish statutory calculations every year showing how large the pay gap is between their male and female employees. This will cover all employees who are employed under a contract of employment, a contract of apprenticeship or a contract personally to do work. This will include those under Agenda for Change terms and conditions, medical staff and very senior managers. All calculations will be made relating to the pay period in which the snapshot day falls.