What is an Equality Impact Assessment?

An Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) is undertaken on all new or revised policies, projects and when services are being developed or changed within the organisation. The aim of an EqIA is to ensure that all our activities as a Trust help to promote equality, challenge discrimination and are genuinely accessible to all. EqIAs offer a proactive approach to achieving fair and appropriate outcomes for patients, staff and our local communities. An Equality Impact Assessment looks at the actual or likely effect of a policy/decision on people who are identified under the “Protected Characteristics” in The Equality Act (2010). These are:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion and belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust we also serve areas of Powys. From 1st April 2021 the Welsh Government requires us to consider the following when reviewing services/policies which affect our Powys patients:

• Caring Responsibilities
• Social economic Status (postcode)
• Language

An Equality Impact Assessment should:

• Consider how to best advance equality, eliminate discrimination and promote good relations by taking into account how policies and service developments might impact upon our local communities
• Ensure that services and policies are inclusive and accessible to everyone
• Helps us to develop a better understanding of the community we serve by having more contact with the diverse groups in our community.
• Help us to make better decisions based on the principles of fairness and equality and consider other ways of achieving the outcomes of the service or policy.
• Change the way we think about our work and the decisions we make.
• Help us to think more about the needs of the community we serve and ensure services and policies are inclusive.
• Remove or mitigate negative impact on those within our protected characteristic groups
• Help to identify best practice and improvements to services and functions.
• Identify and record positive impacts for those within our protected characteristic groups
• Help to prevent direct or indirect discrimination happening now or in the future and ensure that our services are accessible to everyone in our local community.

EqIA are carried out by the department responsible for the service change or the new/revised policy. For service development the Public Participation Team will ensure that EqIA’s are reviewed by the relevant patient and public groups for assurance. Completed EQIA’s for service developments will be uploaded onto this website. Policy EqIA’s are held centrally by the Trust’s Governance team and are available on request.

Further information on EqIA

The Public Sector Equality Duty and Equality Impact Assessments (July 2020) https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06591/