Progress towards achieving equality HCT is committed to promoting equality and diversity amongst its staff and also seeking out areas of focus to improve equality of services for those who find it harder to access services and therefore experience poorer health outcomes. Although overall Hertfordshire is a prosperous county, there are pockets of deprivation in some areas such as Three Rivers, Hertsmere and Stevenage. We also know that people living in these areas are more likely to experience a number of poorer outcomes than the overall Hertfordshire picture. HCT will continue working in close partnership with the Equality and Community Engagement Forum, Gypsy and Traveller Empowerment (GATE) Herts ad other health and social care partners to address inequalities experienced by patients, their families and carers. 3.1 Our achievements During 2016/17 we took the following steps to promote equality and diversity: Unconscious bias awareness slides have been incorporated into a 1-day recruitment and selection training course for managers since November 2016. A Handbook’ was issued in August 2016 covering policy, guidance and tips on ‘Recruitment fairness in recruitment. An audit of interview scoring sheets has been completed to ensure fairness of the recruitment process. The operational HR team have worked hard to review staff turnover in respect of the reasons for staff leaving and how these may be addressed. There are now several options for completing the leaver questionnaire, via paper or online, anonymously or with full details, which the team can then follow up as appropriate. A Handbook’ was developed which contains a short introduction to both the Equality & Diversity and the Anti-Bullying & Harassment policies. Membership of the Equality & Community Engagement Forum has grown and now also includes Gypsy and Traveller and LGBT members. Forum meetings have included presentations from: a representative of the Transgender community, who told us about the drive to
Progress towards achieving equality HCT is committed to promoting equality and diversity amongst its staff and also seeking out areas of focus to improve equality of services for those who find it harder to access services and therefore experience poorer health outcomes. Although overall Hertfordshire is a prosperous county, there are pockets of deprivation in some areas such as Three Rivers, Hertsmere and Stevenage. We also know that people living in these areas are more likely to experience a number of poorer outcomes than the overall Hertfordshire picture. HCT will continue working in close partnership with the Equality and Community Engagement Forum, Gypsy and Traveller Empowerment (GATE) Herts ad other health and social care partners to address inequalities experienced by patients, their families and carers. 3.1 Our achievements During 2016/17 we took the following steps to promote equality and diversity: Unconscious bias awareness slides have been incorporated into a 1-day recruitment and selection training course for managers since November 2016. A ‘Recruitment Handbook’ was issued in August 2016 covering policy, guidance and tips on fairness in recruitment. An audit of interview scoring sheets has been completed to ensure fairness of the recruitment process. The operational HR team have worked hard to review staff turnover in respect of the reasons for staff leaving and how these may be addressed. There are now several options for completing the leaver questionnaire, via paper or online, anonymously or with full details, which the team can then follow up as appropriate. A Handbook’ was developed which contains a short introduction to both the Equality & Diversity and the Anti-Bullying & Harassment policies. Membership of the Equality & Community Engagement Forum has grown and now also includes Gypsy and Traveller and LGBT members. Forum meetings have included presentations from: a representative of the Transgender community, who told us about the drive to
approved_psed_report_2017_for_website.docx