At NHS Frimley, we are committed to and actively promote a fair and inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and respected. Our aim is to create a workplace where every individual has a sense of belonging and is empowered to reach their full potential. We recognise that diversity is our strength, and inclusion is essential to achieving our mission of providing high-quality healthcare and addressing health inequalities. We work closely with our strategic partners to promote equality of access and treatment and by addressing health inequalities, we ensure that all individuals receive the care and support they need.
Our Commitment to EDI:
Inclusive Environment: We strive to create an environment where everyone, including patients, visitors and community members feel welcomed and included.
Valuing Diversity: We celebrate the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of our people and communities
Empowerment: We aim to empower everyone to achieve their best, recognising that each person’s contribution is essential to our success.
Equality of Access: Ensuring that all members of our community have equal access to healthcare services.
Fair Treatment: Promoting fair treatment in all aspects of our work.
Addressing Health Inequalities: Actively working to reduce inequalities in health
NHS Frimley is dedicated to making EDI central to everything we do, enhancing the well-being of our community and workforce. Together, we can build a more inclusive and equitable healthcare system.
Our EDI Ambition
As an NHS organisation our ambition is to:
· Ensure staff fully understand equality and diversity issues
· Make staff feel empowered to challenge prejudice and make reasonable adjustments in their own work areas
· Include equality and diversity training for all staff
· Ensure all staff promote the cultural and behavioural changes to ensure equality and diversity is demonstrated in all aspects of NHS Frimley's work
· Provide an environment for our staff which is free from unlawful discrimination
The role of EDI is central to the behaviours, processes and values of NHS Frimley and across Frimley Health and Care Integrated Care System. We proactively work to meet our duty to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, foster good relations and reduce health inequalities across our staff, service users, partners, stakeholders and wider community.
Our EDI Objectives
Our Equality objectives help us focus attention on the priority issues within the organisation and help us to deliver improvements in policymaking, service delivery and employment, including resource allocation. Our equality objectives are reviewed annually, and updated every four years.
Our strategic equality objectives 2021- 2024 are:
We are currently setting our objectives for 2024-2027. This process includes reviewing our latest workforce data and collaborating with staff across the Integrated Care Board.
Our EDI policy statement
Our EDI Policy Statement clearly directs our commitment to becoming an organisation which is pro-diversity and anti-discriminatory, where everyone’s diversity is valued and appreciated.
Our Zero Tolerance Statement
NHS Frimley’s commitment to reducing workplace and community health inequalities, advancing patient engagement and involving and consulting with the public is driven by the principles of the:
· Health and Social Care Act 2012
We use Equality and Health Inequalities Analyses (EHIAs) to help us to meet our legal requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty which is set out in the Equality Act 2010. There are three strands to the Public Sector Equality Duty. These are to:
· eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality 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
Training & Our Equality Advocates
We believe that in order to embed equality and diversity in NHS Frimley, we need to start with good education across the organisation. We provide access to training for all new staff members including a corporate induction programme.
We also offer a bespoke in-house ‘Equality Advocates Training’ programme. This has been developed to upskill staff to understand:
The overarching legal structures of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work such as the Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights Act 1998
How attitudes, values and beliefs influence behaviour, including emotional intelligence, stress tolerance, language used and microaggressions
Bias, discrimination and privilege in themselves and others
How to be an active bystander/ally and holding courageous conversations
Healing after an incident
Mirror Board
Frimley ICS are proud to have developed and embedded a Mirror Board to the ICB’s Board.
This Board develops a pipeline of future leaders across the health and social care organisations working within our geography, while adding lived experiences to diversify the views and perspectives of the ICB’s Board.
For more information about our Mirror Board, click here.
Public involvement
We understand that there are times where a person's health outcomes will differ on the grounds of certain characteristics. In an attempt to address this we work closely with community groups that represent particular characteristics. This close working allows us to gather patient and public experience, which in turn informs our commissioning. This is designed to complement our public engagement activity. For more information on public engagement activities, visit our Getting Involved section of the website.
