Equity & Diversity

ELFT has shifted from previously using the term "Equality" to now prioritising "Equity". While equality focuses on treating everyone the same, equity in healthcare recognises and responds to the diverse needs and circumstances of individuals and communities, ultimately leading to fairer and more inclusive healthcare systems.

Ensuring equity and valuing diversity are core values of the East London Foundation Trust. This means offering the right services regardless of age, disability, gender, racial origin, religion, belief, sexual orientation, commitments outside of work, part-time or shift work, language, union activity, HIV status, perspectives, opinions and values.

ELFT's People Plan

The Trust is committed to challenging prejudice and discrimination wherever this affects service users and staff and putting equality and diversity at the heart of our organisational culture.

We are committed to demonstrating our 'due regard' to the Public Sector Equality Duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different groups. Listed below are the various ways we meet our statutory, NHS and organisational obligations working with our staff, service users and carers, partners and our local communities. Our Annual Reports provide a summary and more detail is captured in each of the following sections.

Our Commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

ELFT is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of abilities and backgrounds enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Partnering with organisations who are representative of various strands of EDI and experts in their field, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by having fair practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace. View our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Workforce Plan for 2023-2026.

Implementation of the Equality Delivery System – EDS2 is a requirement on both NHS commissioners and NHS providers. Organisations are
encouraged to follow the implementation of EDS2 in accordance with the ‘9 Steps for EDS2 Implementation’ as outlined in the 2013 EDS2 guidance document. To find that document click here.

This EDS2 Summary Report is designed to give an overview of ELFT's most recent EDS2 implementation. To download the EDS2 for 2021 click here.

The public sector Equality Duty (PSED), part of the Equality Act, came into force in April 2011. It requires NHS organisations to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations. The PSED requires that the Trust must provide evidence that we have given ‘due regard’ to the three aims of the General Duty across all 9 protected characteristics: To eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment & victimisation; To advance equality of opportunity; To foster good relations.

ELFT WRES and WDES Data Analysis 2024

The Trust demonstrate through the 9 Point Work Force Race Equality Standard (WRES) metric how we are addressing race equality issues in a range of staffing areas; Must demonstrate progress against a number of indicators of workforce equality, including a specific indicator to address the low levels of BME Board representation.

Trust WRES publications

2023/24

ELFT WRES report and action plan 2023

2022/23

2022

WRES Action Plan

2021

2020

Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) Action Plan 2020
Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) Infographic - October 2020

2019

2018

The WDES is a set of specific measures to enable us to compare the experiences of disabled and non-disabled staff. Research shows that a motivated, included and valued workforce helps to deliver high quality patient care, increased patient satisfaction and improved patient safety. The WDES enables the Trust to better understand the experiences of disabled staff. It will support positive change for existing employees, and enable a more inclusive environment for disabled people working in the NHS.

2023/24

ELFT WDES Report and Action Plan 2023

2022/2023

2022

WDES Action Plan

2021

2020

Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) Submission - March 2020

2019

2018

ELFT's Equality, Diversity & Human Rights Policy

Accessible Information Standard for people with a disability, impairment or sensory loss

The AI Standard tells organisations how to make information accessible to patients, service users and their carers and parents. The standard directs and defines a specific, consistent approach to identifying, recording, flagging, sharing and meeting the information and communication needs of patients, service users, carers and parents, where those needs relate to a disability, impairment or sensory loss. The Trust's Statement on Accessibility is available here.

The information is published on the Government website here and is openly available for review. All organisations with 250+ employees are required to publish their data.

Previous Reports

ELFT Pay Gap Summary and Action Plan 2023

ELFT Gender Pay Gap Report 2023

ELFT Ethnicity Pay Gap Report 2023

ELFT Disability Pay Gap Report 2023

ELFT Gender Pay Gap Report 2021

ELFT Gender Pay Gap Report 2022

The Sexual Orientation Monitoring Information Standard provides the mechanism for recording the sexual orientation of all patients/ service users aged 16 years and over across all health services and Local Authorities with responsibilities for Adult social care in England in all service areas where it may be relevant to collect this data. The standard acts as an enabler for the Equality Act 2010, supporting good practice and reducing the mitigation risk for organisations required to comply with the Act. All public sector bodies have a legal obligation to pay due regard to the needs of (LGBT) people in the design and delivery of services, and to ensure that people are not discriminated against based upon their sexual orientation.

The Trust offers interpretation services to patients whose first language is not English including face to face language interpreters, telephone language interpreters, British Sign Language (BSL) and Lip Speakers. All our written information is available in different languages and formats upon request. If you have any specific needs please notify the relevant department. The Trust is committed to continually improving access to our services and experiences of using our services, and is currently working to meet the requirements of the mandated Accessible Information Standard to ensure we can more effectively identity, flag, record, share and meet the information and communication needs of people who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss.

See all the Trust's initiatives for the Respect and Dignity @ Work campaign, including Through my eyes, A mile in my shoes, Creating Change, and more.

Click here to see the slides.

NHS England has launched its first ever anti-racism framework: the Patient and carer race equality framework (PCREF), for all NHS mental health trusts and mental health service providers to embed across England. This mandatory framework will support trusts and providers on their journeys to becoming actively anti-racist organisations by ensuring that they are responsible for co-producing and implementing concrete actions to reduce racial inequalities within their services. It will become part of Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections.

Click here to see the page.