Highland NHS Board
5 June 2007
Item 7.1
NHS HIGHLAND GENDER EQUALITY SCHEME 2007 – 2010
Report by Moira Paton, Head of Community and Health Improvement Planning
The Board is asked to:

Consider and Endorse the Gender Equality Scheme
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INTRODUCTION
1.1
The Gender Equality Duty (GED) is the most important change to sex equality
legislation in the past 30 years. The onus is now on public sector employers and
service providers to ensure and to evidence that they are actively promoting gender
equality.
Under the GED, public bodies are required to eliminate unlawful
discrimination and take steps to actively promote equality between women and men
throughout their work. By taking into account the impact of gender on women’s and
men’s wellbeing, life experiences, use of public services and employment
opportunities, health boards can achieve even more to remove barriers and promote
equality.
1.2
The Gender Equality Duty is a requirement of the Equality Act (2006) and places a
statutory duty on public authorities to have due regard, in all their functions, to the
need to:

Eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment

Promote equality of opportunity between men and women
Unlawful discrimination is defined as:
1.3

Direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex

Discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy and maternity leave

Discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment

Direct and indirect discrimination against married persons and civil

Victimisation

Harassment and sexual harassment
partners
Certain public authorities, including NHS organisations, are required to publish a
Gender Equality Scheme, setting out how they will meet their general and specific
duties and setting out their gender equality objectives.
Specific duties include the requirement to:

Gather and use information on how our policies and practices affect gender
equality in the workforce and in the delivery of services

Consult stakeholders (including staff, service users and trades unions) and take
account of relevant information in order to determine gender equality objectives
Working with you to make Highland the healthy place to be

Assess the impact of our current and proposed policies and practices on gender
equality, and have due regard to the results of these impact assessments

Publish a statement that outlines our policy on equal pay

Implement the actions set out in the scheme within three years, unless it is
reasonable or impracticable to do so

Report against the scheme every year and review the scheme at least every three
years

Report against the equal pay statement within three years, and every three years
thereafter
The first scheme must be published by 29 June 2007, and the equal pay statement
by 28 September 2007.
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THE NHS HIGHLAND GENDER EQUALITY SCHEME
2.1
Publication of this Gender Equality Scheme, which is attached, is an opportunity to
demonstrate how we will fulfil our new legal obligations. However the scheme also
reflects the view that recognising, adopting and embracing the values of equality and
diversity is about much more than meeting our legal duties. There are clear benefits
to the organisation and its staff as well as to the public.
2.2
By ensuring that opportunities are available for all staff to reach their potential,
individuals gain skills, confidence and ability and the organisation benefits from a
more capable, confident and qualified workforce.
By recognising the skills and experience that all groups within our communities can
offer, equal opportunities are promoted, individuals can be positively recognised for
their abilities, and the organisation is far more able to reflect the experience and
needs of its whole population in a telling way.
By engaging effectively and meaningfully with local communities and groups of
interest, the organisation can be sure that the services it provides are appropriate and
sensitively delivered, and that individuals, groups and communities have viable
channels of communication to ensure that their views are heard, opinions considered
and appropriate action taken, not only to meet need but to recognise innovation led
by the community.
2.3
The scheme was developed in close consultation with managers, staff, patients and
the public and reflects both national and local priorities for evidencing and promoting
gender equality with NHS Highland’s specific objectives and priorities set out in the
complementary action plan (pages 59-77).
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CONTRIBUTION TO BOARD OBJECTIVES
3.1
The scheme is designed to contribute to a number of Board objectives:
Delivery / Local Health Plan
The Gender Equality Scheme (GES) is linked to several HEAT targets.
descriptions of impact are as follows;
Broad
Health Improvement
By highlighting gender differences within health, resources can be appropriately
focused to further support the reduction of health inequalities. For example by
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investigating differences in how men and women are influenced by anti smoking
campaigns and the gender differences in the uptake of smoking cessation services
we will be able to ensure that we appropriately target resources.
Access to Services
By understanding how men and women use services differently and the
appropriateness of services to meet their needs we can support existing work
ensuring that all patients are receiving an appropriate service. For example by
investigating how men use GP services and looking at alternative approaches to
provision we can work towards decreasing the time between onset of symptoms and
intervention.
Treatment
By understanding who needs our services and when and how this experience differs
for men and women we can better understand how to improve the quality of our
services to the benefit of our patients. For example by understanding how changes in
the treatment of depression in women impact on outcome, we can more appropriately
provide other therapies that are used by and perceived positively by patients as
alternatives to medication.
Quality
By reflecting on our policy and practice the GES allows NHSH to understand how our
services impact on the population in relation to gender, what we need to do to
address such impact and also how to recognise and promote the positive work that
we already do.
Health Improvement
The aim of the GES is to support NHS Highland in the improvement of health for all
by understanding and responding to gender inequality as part of a broader agenda for
promoting equality and diversity as part of our everyday business.
Partnership Working
As with all equality and diversity strands, the public engagement element of the
Gender Equality Scheme has been developed in partnership and the scheme
includes specific actions to be delivered with our partners.
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GOVERNANCE IMPLICATIONS & IMPACT ASSESSMENT
4.1
Staff Governance
The employer aspects of the scheme will contribute directly to improvements in our
role as an employer.
Financial Impact
No resources have been identified to implement the scheme and objectives have
been designed on this basis i.e. by using existing resources
Public and Patient Engagement / Communications
As with other equality specific schemes the NHS Highland Gender Equality Scheme
(GES) has community engagement and involvement at its core. This work has been
developed in partnership with other statutory and non statutory organisations and
includes a range of approaches to engagement and ongoing involvement detailed
throughout the scheme.
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Equality and Diversity Impact Assessment
The scheme itself is designed to have positive impact on women, men and the
transgender community. Cross-strand issues will be identified for each element of
the action plan to ensure positive impact for multiply disadvantaged groups and
individuals.
Clinical Governance
Priorities for action identified during the preparation of the scheme will, when
addressed, directly improve people’s experience of NHS Highland services.
MOIRA C PATON
Head of Community and Health Improvement Planning
25 May 2007
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