The PAH Equality Objectives for 2012/15
By the 6 th April 2012 the Princess Alexandra NHS Trust is required by law to have published its equality objectives as per the Equality Duty outlined in the Equality
Delivery System (EDS) guidance for NHS organisations.
The Equality Delivery System (EDS) is designed to support NHS commissioners and providers to deliver better outcomes for patients and communities and better working environments for staff, which are personal, fair and diverse. The EDS is all about making positive differences to healthy living and working lives
At the heart of the EDS is a set of 18 outcomes grouped into four goals. These outcomes focus on the issues of most concern to patients, carers, communities,
NHS staff and Boards. It is against these outcomes that performance is analysed, graded and action determined. The four EDS goals are:




Better health outcomes for all
Improved patient access and experience
Empowered, engaged and included staff
Inclusive leadership at all levels
There are two key targets associated with the EDS these being to have:

Published by the 31st January 2012 information demonstrating our compliance with public sector Equality Duty;

By the 6th April 2012 to have published our equality objectives as per the Equality Duty.
In developing our Equality Objectives for 2012/15, we reviewed the information we have available to identify any themes or focus areas. The sources of information we have reviewed include:




Workforce reports
Complaints records
The Essex Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Report
Third party reports e.g. The CQC registration evidence, surveys of patients and staff experience, and NHS Choices
At this stage and because of the limited time available we have had less engagement of local interests that we would want to involve in EDS implementation.
Our next step is to engage these local interests include patients, communities, staff, staff-side organisations, and voluntary organisations so as to encompass all
Page 1 of 3

The PAH Equality Objectives for 2012/15 protected groups. However, based on a review of the information available to the
Trust which includes:




Workforce reports
Complaints records
The Essex Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Report
Third party reports e.g. The CQC registration evidence, surveys of patients and staff experience, and NHS Choices
We identified the following Equality Objectives: i. Staff awareness of issues relating to Equality Delivery System (EDS) and how they contribute to its delivery at PAH - 95% of staff to be aware of the
PAH Equality Objectives by April 2012. ii. “Make Every Contact Count” - through systematic healthy lifestyle advice delivered through front line staff to reduce the inequalities in health outcomes associated with lifestyle behaviours such as smoking and alcohol consumption. 10% of staff trained in tactful conversations by April 2013 and
50 % within 4 years. Nationally, the prevalence of smoking in the adult population is 26% compared to that of Harlow which is 27.5%. 17.6% of the adult population in Harlow binge drink, which is below the England average but is the second highest prevalence across Essex - Essex JSNA. iii. Empower patients by providing adequate information before during and after visits to hospital: a. Reduce to national average the percentage of patients that report that they had either “not enough or no information given about condition or treatment” by April 2013 and make incremental improvements to be in the top 25 percentile within 4 years. Currently 22% of the Trust patients answered “yes” to this question compared to national average of 16% for Acute Trusts - The PAH Outpatient Survey Report 2011. b. Reduce to national average the percentage of patients that report that
“not all staff introduced themselves” by April 2013 and make incremental improvements to be in the top 25 percentile within 4 years.
Currently (36 % of the Trust patients answered “yes” to this question compared to national average of 28% for Acute Trusts - The PAH
Outpatient Survey Report 2011). iv.
“No decision about me without me” -
Reduce to national average the percentage of patients that report that they were “not fully involved in decision m aking about care and treatment” by April 2013 and make incremental improvements to be in the top 25 percentile within 4 years. Currently (34% of
Page 2 of 3

The PAH Equality Objectives for 2012/15 the Trust patients answered
“yes” to this question compared to national average of 27% for Acute Trusts (The PAH Outpatient Survey Report 2011). v. Improved data collection . We aim to gain more complete data on sexual orientation of employees. At present most Trusts are showing around 90% plus of either “Null” or “Refuse to answer”. This means that we are unable to assess whether or not our recruitment and HR processes are fair and open, and we do not have a true picture of the diversity of our staff.
Our aim therefore is to “understand the diverse nature of our staff in order to meet their needs and create a more inclusive culture.”
Our objective is to “improve the data and increase declarations of sexual orientation by staff by at least 10% within 4 years.” vi. Address harassment, bullying or abuse from staff . The staff survey illustrates that the Trust has not improved in this area from last year, and is above the national average for acute Trusts. Therefore, the objective is to reduce the percentage of staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from other staff to below national average by 3% over 4 years.
4.
i. The Executive team is asked to note the proposed Equality Objectives and discuss their relevance to the Trust. ii. The Executive team is asked to support further work to allow delivery of the stated objectives noting that there may be resource implications mostly relating to staff training. However the focus will be on embedding the training within existing staff development programmes rather than necessarily developing new separate programmes. iii. The Executive team is asked to approve the publication of these Quality
Objectives after taking into account the Executives feedback by 6 April 2012 in line with the requirements of the law.
Page 3 of 3