We are dedicated to creating a culture of belonging and supporting our diverse service users, colleagues and communities.
We’re on a journey with our equality, diversity and inclusion work and recognise there are areas of improvement which we continue to work on.
Equality, diversity and inclusion is something we think about in everything we do. We are constantly holding a mirror against who we are, and challenging behaviours and attitudes to embed meaningful actions which make change. This is everyone’s business, in every role across our organisation.
Our anti-racist statement and our transgender and non-binary statement, reinforce our zero tolerance approach to discrimination.
- Challenging poor behaviours, attitudes and the status quo to make a difference
- Becoming an anti-racist organisation, as mentioned in our anti-racist statement
- Improving our recruitment practices to appoint diversity from our local communities
- Educating, supporting and raising awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion
- Supporting our staff networks to continue to develop and thrive and ensure your voices are heard
- Working on advancing mental health equalities across our populations
Racism does not have a place in our organisation. We will challenge poor behaviour, eradicate, and challenge incidents of discrimination, victimisation or harassment based on a person’s ethnicity.
In 2020 we became the first NHS trust in the North West to publish an anti-racist statement, publicly pledging our commitment to become anti-racist.
We’re on a journey with our equality, diversity and inclusion work and continuously hold a mirror up to ourselves, educate ourselves, and challenge both ourselves and others.
We have also produced a piece of work on racism and mental health, with a pledge to patients and everyone who uses our services.
As a public sector organisation, we have a statutory duty to ensure that equality, diversity and human rights are embedded into all functions and activities. This is required by the Equality Act 2010, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the NHS Constitution.
Here are some of the ways we monitor how we're doing:
- The Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES), which highlights the experience of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) members of the workforce compared to their white counterparts.
- The Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) which highlights the experiences of disabled members of the workforce compared to their non-disabled counterparts.
- Gender pay gap reporting, which looks at the disparity of pay between male and female workers.
- The Accessible Information Standard and our website accessibility statement help to ensure you can access health and social care information in a format you understand.
- Our progress against our EDS2 goals set. EDS2 is a toolkit to support NHS organisations to identify, implement, embed and deliver their equality objectives. View our latest EDS2 update.
- We're also required to publish an annual progress report
Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society.
Health inequalities can impact anyone. Reducing health inequalities is a key task for us and something we are committed to undertaking. It requires meaningful, effective actions to be implemented.
The Centre for Mental Health have produced a mental health inequalities factsheet with some more information on this.
Our board, alongside our head of equality, diversity and inclusion, are looking into the development of a health inequalities strategy, to outline the challenges we face and how we will ensure equitable support and access for all.
We have signed up to the ‘advancing mental health equalities’ national resource, developed with the Royal College of Physiatrists and NHS England and NHS Improvement. This allows us to work with targeted portions of the population, embed innovative approaches and strategies, and reduce mental health inequalities.
Work is also continuing in building relationships with community networks, forums and groups. If you are interested in any of this work, please email pcn.tr.equalitydiversityinclusion@nhs.net
Read our health inequalities board paper for more information on the work we're doing.
We have a number of staff networks, including Race Equality, LGBTQ+, Positive Ability, Multi-Faith, Women's, and Men's Wellbeing networks, to challenge us and help us constantly improve.
Visit our staff networks page to learn more.