Equality and Diversity in Health and Social Care

Promoting inclusion, equality and diversity in health and social care can be easier for some services than others. However, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Remember, being a diverse and equal provider isn’t an option, it’s essential.

Are you interested in learning how to promote equality and diversity in your service? This article has been created to help you understand the importance of equality and diversity and to provide you with the information and tools you need to promote it.

Why is Diversity Important in Health and Social Care?

Both equality and diversity are essential components of health and social care. Good equality and diversity practices ensure that the services that are provided to people are accessible and fair to everyone involved, including service users and care providers. This helps everyone feel like they are treated equally and that they get the respect and dignity that they deserve.

Good diversity ensures that everyone knows that their differences are something to be celebrated, whatever your background, ethnicity or belief. Diversity enhances creativity and encourages the search for new, innovative perspectives and information. This leads to better problem-solving and decision-making, which can help improve the quality of your service while boosting its appeal.

Why is Inclusion Important in Health and Social Care?

Inclusion in health and social care refers to being an inclusive employer and helping people cared for to be more included in society. Being an inclusive employer is essential, as it helps people feel involved and empowered in the workplace. When people feel included, they will know that their worth will be recognised and respected.

Employees work and feel their best when they can be their authentic selves, whatever their ethnicity or beliefs. Being able to do so without being judged or cast out means they will feel more comfortable and are better able to contribute and bring ideas forward. Perspectives from completely different backgrounds can prove to be beneficial, especially in health and social care settings where care is provided to individuals who may have similar backgrounds.

Inclusion can also refer to being inclusive to all the different people you are providing care and support to, but also ensuring that people are included in their local communities, are able to maintain relationships and so on, in order to avoid social exclusion or social isolation.

Social isolation can lead to loneliness if it occurs. Which as we all now know can be long reaching negative impacts on both physical and mental health.

Social inclusion is all about relationships, including connections between staff and service users, plus their families, carers and the wider community. For service users, helping them to maintain strong relationships with these people and continuing contact with their loved ones will reduce social isolation. Another great way to reduce exclusion is to offer support when it comes to maintaining former interests and activities, as well as searching for new ones.

Relevant Legislation You Must Know

To ensure equality and diversity come naturally to your service, you must educate yourself and the entire workforce on the legislation, principles and practices that surround this area. You and all of your employees must be aware of the four laws that specifically relate to equality and diversity in health and social care. They are:

• The Human Rights Act 1998 – This legislation has five main principles: Fairness, Respect, Equality, Dignity and Autonomy. The Act outlines basic human rights and principles of equality.
  
  
• The Mental Capacity Act 2005 – This legislation was put in place to help people who are unable to maintain their dignity, independence and right to freedom. To help vulnerable individuals maintain their right to dignity and equality, The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) was put in place.
  
  
• The Equality Act 2010 – The legislation surrounds the topics of equality and diversity, covering all areas of society which includes health and social care. Covering all sectors, The Act works off the nine protected characteristics: age, disability, race, religion and belief, marriage and civil partnership, sex, gender reassignment and sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity.
  
  
• The Care Act 2014 – This legislation underlines all work involving vulnerable adults. This includes helping adults give their consent for tailored support that is chosen by them.

It can be hard to get people involved in promoting and supporting it until a consistent level of understanding has been reached. Making sure you have a resourceful equality and diversity policy in place will help staff understand and comply with the aims. It should be mandatory to read this policy and participate in the appropriate training surrounding equality in health and social care.

Equality and diversity policies and procedures are included in Access Policies and Procedures. You can download a full catalogue of the policies included in the software, including our care home policies and procedures and domiciliary care policies and procedures.

Challenging Discrimination in Health and Social Care

If the above isn’t adhered to and people feel discriminated against, then they can legally take action against your service or an individual. There are four types of discrimination:

• Direct discrimination – Where an individual is treated differently by others due to their protected characteristics.
  
  
• Indirect discrimination – When a company puts a role or policy in place or an individual makes assumptions that could impact someone with a protected characteristic.
  
  
• Harassment – When people are treated in a way that violates their dignity or creates a degrading, humiliating, offensive or hostile environment.
  
  
• Victimisation – Where an individual is treated unfairly due to taking action under the Equality Act, or by supporting someone else who is doing so.

People can check if they have experienced discrimination by finding more information about the case. This can help them confirm their encounter and form a strong complaint. If you’ve experienced discrimination under the Equality Act, then you can take legal action against the discriminator, service or organisation. If the incident doesn’t fall under the Equality Act, you can make a formal complaint.

What is Discrimination in Health and Social Care?

When people are discriminated against, it means that they are treated differently to others. Discrimination in health and social care is defined as a lack of consideration or negative actions towards an individual or a group of people all because of an unjustified, preconceived opinion. This could be towards members of staff or service users. Discrimination isn’t always unlawful, but it is illegal if it’s against the Equality Act (2010).

Examples of Discrimination in Health and Social Care

Examples of discrimination in health and social care include treating people differently due to their race, religion, sexual orientation or certain characteristics. It could even be something like excluding people who require wheelchairs by not providing them with access. While some forms of discrimination can be intentional, others can be unintentional or accidental. Understandable, these are often harder to see. 

Indirect Discrimination in Health and Social Care

When there’s a policy, practice, rule or condition that applies to everyone but at the same time, unintentionally singles out people with a physical or mental disadvantage, it’s classed as indirect discrimination. This is usually accidental and whoever made the decision or put the plan or policy in place often assumes that applying one general rule to everyone ensures that they’re all being treated equally. However, this isn’t always the case and could be due to this person having a lack of awareness, unconscious bias or a poor attitude towards equality and diversity.

Examples of Indirect Discrimination in Health and Social Care

In many cases, people’s culture, backgrounds or personal experiences can lead to them adopting certain perceptions and attitudes towards others without them realising it. Keeping this in check will prevent indirect discrimination. The following are examples of indirect discrimination in health and social care:

• Using identification systems or dress codes – could be a disadvantage towards Muslims who wear head scarves.
• Making a rule that requires all staff to work on Sundays – may trouble Christians who attend church on Sundays.
• Having a policy where all male and female patients or service users receive care from someone of the same gender – some people may feel more comfortable with the opposite gender and transgender people often want to be perceived by the gender they identify as.
• Serving meals to service users at certain times during each day without any flexibility – may not accommodate people who are fasting due to their religious beliefs.

People with different backgrounds, religious beliefs or cultures will likely have a different view of life compared to yourself. However, you should make an effort to remain respectful, open-minded and accepting of their points of view. And they should behave the same way towards you.

How to Prevent Discrimination in Health and Social Care?

Whether it’s against employees or service users, preventing discrimination in health and social care is completely doable. Whoever has been discriminated against must think about the outcome they expect and how fast they want to see results. In unlawful cases, they will need to consider speaking to solicitors, trips to court, gathering evidence and requests for compensation to name a few.

In both unlawful and accidental cases, the discrimination must be stopped and apologies made. The decisions that have been made to take action against the discrimination should be reviewed and the care service’s policies should be changed. This will help prevent a similar event arising in the future. One of the best ways to prevent discrimination even further is to regularly train and inform your employees about discrimination, how to prevent it and what they should do if they notice it in the workplace.

What is Inclusion in Health and Social Care?

Inclusion in health and social care is an approach where people with different backgrounds are welcomed into the care service or workplace with open arms. They will be socially and culturally accepted and treated equally. Each person should be engaged as an individual. This will create a sense of belonging and make them feel respected for who they are.

A few examples of inclusion include respecting and appreciating people’s backgrounds and cultural values, fostering a culture with authentic greetings and giving everyone equal access to resources.

Empowerment in Health and Social Care

Empowerment in health and social care can make a huge difference when it comes to the happiness of your care team and service users. It is defined as a process that offers more control to people over important decisions and actions that can have an impact on their lives. This includes being able to openly express their religious beliefs, sexuality and aspirations with the support and protection of those around them. A conscious effort must be made to give service users a choice when it comes to their care. This could be preferences surrounding their routine, their carer and their goals and wishes. For more information, we have an extremely informative guide on empowerment and engagement that you should take some time to read. 

Equality and Diversity in Health and Social Care – How Regulators Assess It

In England, where providers are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), themes of equality, diversity and inclusion all feature in the CQC’s Key Lines of Enquiry (or CQC KLOEs) in multiple areas but especially under the domain of ‘Caring’.

The same will be true once the CQC New Inspection Framework kicks in, with the new Quality Statements replacing the KLOEs. Specifically, there are Quality Statements under the ‘Well-Led’ domain such as ‘Shared direction and culture’ which refers to:

Having a shared vision, strategy and culture. Based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and our communities in order to meet these.

And the Quality Statement ‘Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion’:

We value diversity in our workforce. We work towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who work for us.

Likewise, the regulatory bodies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all use inspection methods and frameworks that include provisions to assess whether providers are meeting their obligations under the relevant legislation and standards, such as the Health and Social Care Standards in Scotland.

Equality for Vulnerable Adults

Vulnerable adults or adults in need are people who aren’t able to take care of themselves adequately or protect themselves from harm. This can be due to their age, an illness or disability. If you work in a care setting, then there is a high chance that you will be regularly working with vulnerable adults, so you must uphold equality and diversity practices.

While the nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 apply to all adults in need, some of them will have a more direct link that you should fully understand. Being aware of these key protected characteristics and ways to prevent discrimination against them is crucial. You should educate yourself on the following:

• Age – This characteristic will refer to people who fall within a particular age group. The age of an individual will affect their needs, but you should always be careful to not make assumptions. For example, you should never assume that an older adult has poor hearing, sight or memory. And don’t assume that a young adult is too immature to make important decisions.
  
  
• Disability – This refers to people who deal with a physical or mental impairment that has a significant impact on their day-to-day life. To promote equality for disabled people, you should look at your method of care and consider making changes that will work for each individual. For example, creating personal care plans and making your setting accessible.
  
  
• Race – This characteristic refers to a person’s skin colour, ethnicity or nationality. Health and social care workers must promote equality concerning race. This means being aware of and adapting your methods to meet people’s cultural needs and feelings to ensure that everyone has the same positive experience when they are in your care.
  
  
• Religion and Belief – Refers to people who follow any religion, including atheism or those who embrace any philosophical belief. The care you provide may vary depending on their religion or belief, so you should avoid using the same care approach for all. This could put you at risk of indirect discrimination.
  
  

Factors that Enable Inclusive Practice in Health and Social Care

Whether it’s a care provider or a service user, everyone has their own traits that everyone should be aware of and sensitive towards. Making sure everyone is fully trained in Equality and Diversity, the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and SOVA and have the opportunity to attend refreshers is essential. Educating and training your staff and ensuring they have access to the information they need is the first step to promoting equality and diversity in your setting. However, there are things you can and should do to increase it further.

Encouraging your employees to think about the things that matter to your service users will help them provide the best care that works for the individual while making equality and diversity a priority. They should think about the values and goals of each person and what they need to attain them. Keeping these points in mind will help provide support in the individual’s best interest while keeping matters surrounding equality and diversity in the foreground. You can also find out what your service users expect from their care service and develop personalised care plans to reflect their individuality.

How Software Can Boost Equality and Diversity Further

The Access Group has a fantastic range of digital software that can help you boost equality and diversity in your health and social care service even further. Whether you’re looking to organise your policies and procedures and make them easy to read and access at all times, or you want to prioritise equality and diversity training, we have the system for you.

With over 30 years of experience digitising various businesses, we have the information you need to help you make the right decisions and support you on your journey to digitisation. 

Our Policies and Procedures for health and social care give clear, accessible instructions when it comes to handling specific aspects of delivering a service. It allows you to manage all of your health and social care policies (including your equality and diversity policy), procedures, documents and forms in one place. In return, you can focus on care quality, care operations control and efficiency of your service.

If training your staff is your priority, we have a fantastic digital learning platform with a range of Social Care eLearning Courses to meet your training needs. Our market-leading eLearning courses created with experts have been designed to deliver the learning your staff needs. Whether it’s for health, safety and compliance or personal and professional development, we can help you promote a culture of learning.

Find out all you need to know about Access Policies and Procedures by contacting us or booking a demo. If you’re also interested in our eLearning courses to help you meet the regulatory, compliance and eLearning needs of your business, get in touch today.