Page 11 - Calderstone AR 2015

Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust 11 Yearbook 2014 - 2015
The Trust continually seeks ways to improve and follow best practice examples in terms of equal opportunities for staff, service users, stakeholders and members. Equality and Diversity remains high on the Trust’s agenda and we continue to meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty.
Equality and Diversity
As with the 2013-14 assessment, an Equality & Diversity survey was sent to every employee in January 2015, the questions within this linked directly to the EDS outcomes and 194 staff (18.37%) responded to this survey.
Similarly a questionnaire was designed for service users and completed via the electronic Patient Experience Tracker (PET) system. All service users were given the opportunity to
be involved in this process. This also linked directly to the relevant EDS outcomes to ensure we were collating valuable feedback from both those who deliver and those who use our services.
Performance relating to the Trust’s Equality and Diversity action plan and objectives will be monitored via the Strategy and Performance Committee and the Trust Board who will ensure compliance at all levels and in all areas of the Trust.
Following the 2013-14 Equality Delivery System (EDS) assessment the Trust was awarded ‘Achieving’ under each of the goals.
The Trust’s aim for 2014/15 was to continue to make progress at ‘Achieving’ level as we work towards improving the systems and processes currently in place which monitor our equality performance. Additionally, we aimed that during this time we would, where possible, take opportunities
to showcase some of the excellent work undertaken by the Trust and continues to deliver, around equality and diversity.
Following an evaluation of the design and implementation of the EDS system by Shared Intelligence in 2012, and subsequent engagement with a spread of NHS organisations and stakeholders, a refreshed EDS known as EDS2 was introduced and has been used by Calderstones for our 2014/15 assessment.
On 23 March 2015, an EDS2 self-assessment event was held for our stakeholders. Members of the Trust, including the Board, governors, commissioners, management, staff, service users, families and carers were invited to the event and key speakers delivered presentations regarding the Trust’s current services and progress linked to Equality and Diversity since the 2013/14 assessment. Following each presentation attendees were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments on each of the 18 EDS outcomes.
Around 50 people attended the event and each was asked to give individual grades on anonymised paper score sheets. There were 17 areas where the Trust was awarded "achieving", one area was graded as "developing" (Goal 3.4) however this was an area identified by the Trust as requiring improvement and a significant amount of work has been undertaken during the past 6 months in this area, with work ongoing to try to improve support for staff. As the goals are given a grade based upon the majority, all 4 goals were scored as "achieving".
This was an extremely positive event and showcased the work of the Trust and the significant progress made.
It also provided the opportunity for a number of our service users to share their experiences of Calderstones and to discuss some of the successful work that has been, and continues to be undertaken.
Through engagement with staff and service users prior to the event we were able to identify actions which
will be developed into an action plan to run alongside the Objectives set in 2012, and will form the basis of the Trusts Equality Objectives for 2016-20.