All NHS Trusts are required to follow the Legislative Framework underpinned by the Equality Act 2010, Human Rights – the Mental Health Act Code of Practice, the Equality Delivery System (EDS2), the Workforce Race Equality Standards (WRES), the Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES), Gender Pay Gap (GPG), and the Accessible Information Standard (AIS). The Equality Act has expanded and mandates the Trust in addressing Equality Diversity and Inclusion in each of the above areas as well as placing a statutory duty to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) to address unlawful discrimination.
The PSED sets out ‘general’ and ‘specific’ duties on public authorities as set out below:
The General Duty to:
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and other conduct prohibited by the Act.
- 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
The Specific Duty to:
- Publish equality information at least once a year to show how they’ve complied with the equality duty
- Prepare and publish equality objectives at least every 4 years.
The information must include information relating to people who share a protected characteristic who are:
- its employees, and
- people affected by its policies and practices.
This annual report provides an analysis of all Gateshead NHS FT employees by protected characteristics, including bank workers as captured via the old NHS Jobs and the newly implemented TRAC system. It has been broken down into 2 areas covering the following:
- Applicants and New Starters for the reporting period April 2021 – March 2022
- All Staff currently in post in the same time frame