In this section...

  1. How we make decisions
  2. Our priorities
  3. Policies and procedures
  4. What we spend and how we spend it
  5. Who we are and what we do
  6. Work for us

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We believe that everyone has the right to be their truest selves whilst working at our Trust. Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of our values. We aim to employ a workforce that is as representative as possible of our local population.

We are committed to taking an anti-discrimination approach in every aspect of our work, providing a workplace where all our patients and colleagues feel a true sense of belonging and above all are safe and protected from the harm caused by racism, homophobia, biphobia or transphobia.

We expect our staff to be upstanding bystanders and to challenge discrimination. For we can only be a truly anti-discrimination organisation if everyone feels empowered to act.

We believe as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion, other formal employment policies, and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think this makes us better able to treat our patients as well as a better place to work.

Our vision

Our vision applies to staff, patients, and their families, is to be effortlessly inclusive.

To achieve this, we aim to:

  • treat everyone with respect and dignity at all times
  • challenge discriminatory behaviour and practice
  • recognise and embrace diversity
  • ensure equal and easy access to services
  • ensure equal access to employment and development opportunities
  • consult and engage with staff, patients, and their families to ensure that the services and the facilities of the Trust meet their needs

Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 (the Act) replaces previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act. The Act’s aim is to simplify the law, remove inconsistencies and make it easier for people to understand and comply with, as well as strengthening the law to help tackle discrimination and inequality.

The majority of the Act came into force on 1 October 2010 and the public sector equality duty came into force on 5 April 2011. The equality duty ensures that all public bodies play their part in making society fairer by tackling discrimination and providing equality of opportunity for all.

The equality duty is a duty on public bodies and others carrying out public functions. It ensures public bodies consider the needs of all individuals in their day-to-day work-in shaping policy, delivering services, and in relation to their own employees.

The new equality duty covers the following protected characteristics:

  • age
  • disability
  • gender reassignment
  • marriage and civil partnership
  • pregnancy and maternity
  • race, which includes ethnic or national origins, colour, or nationality
  • religion or belief (this includes lack of belief)
  • sex
  • sexual orientation

The equality duty has 3 aims. It requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to:

  1. Eliminate unlawful discrimination-harassment, victimisation, and any other conduct prohibited by the Act.
  2. Advance equality of opportunity between people who share protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
  3. Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.

As part of the Act, public sector organisations must publish evidence to confirm they are meeting the 3 aims highlighted above.

Equality Delivery System

The evidence presented by the Trust has been collated as part of the implementation of the Department of Health’s Equality Delivery System.

The system is designed as a tool to be used to help all staff and NHS organisations understand how equality can drive improvements and strengthen the accountability of services to patients and the public. It will help ensure that everyone, patients, the public, and staff, have a voice in how organisations are performing and where they should improve.

The system encourages Trusts to work with their patients, staff, and stakeholders to gather and analyse information on equality; set equality objectives, and make the changes required to become better employers and improve the way frontline health services deliver good health outcomes for the protected groups who experience the greatest inequalities.

We use the system framework to support us in developing our inclusion objectives which are monitored and reviewed via relevant Board level committees. Progress is reported to our Board via the equality and diversity annual report.

Equality impact assessments

We use equality impact assessments to help us look at what impact an existing or proposed policy, procedure, practice, or service is likely to have on different groups of people. They aim to eliminate discrimination and improve equality.

Equality impact assessments assess several important areas, including:

  • age,
  • race and ethnicity
  • disability
  • gender reassignment
  • sex
  • sexual orientation
  • groups who face health inequalities

Equality objectives 2024-28

Under the Public Sector Equality Duty, we are required to publish equality objectives every 4 years.

Equality, diversity and inclusion teams from across NHS Cornwall worked together to create equality objectives which link to the NHS England equality, diversity and inclusion implementation plan, the Equality Delivery System and each Trusts’ strategy objectives. The Trust approved these in January 2024.

The teams were asked to engage with staff representatives to create a corresponding set of everyday language objective wording that could be used in communications to help staff, patients and carers understand the objectives and how they might relate to their lives.

Objective 1

Implement clear development programmes on equity, diversity and inclusion. To improve cultural competency at all levels, ensuring our staff have skills and confidence in providing individualised care, across the system.

Trust strategic ambition: Great care.

"We are aware and adaptable to meeting people's needs creatively to ensure that they have a sense of belonging and are empowered to contribute authentically within our organisation."

Objective 2

Promote positive behaviours and address bullying, harassment, and discrimination through clear strategies to tackle systemic inequalities.

Trust strategic ambition: Great organisation.

"We are all role models of positive behaviours, and we stand shoulder to shoulder to address bullying, harassment, and discrimination."

Objective 3

Ensure equitable representation across all levels, developing an enhanced recruitment process to attract people and offer clear career progression.

Trust strategic ambition: Great people.

"We have a recruitment process that creates a diverse workforce and ensures opportunities are provided that are equitable and offers career growth for everyone."

Objective 4

Work with system partners to improve equitable access to healthcare, involving and engaging the local population to focus on preventative care.

Trust strategic ambition: Great partner.

"We will work with patient communities to make sure that they are involved in design of services provided by us and our partners to make sure that they are accessible and well understood."

The co-constructed, everyday language versions are a product of discussion, ideas and suggestions collated with the 7 staff networks being invited to contribute and through workshops held at the Culture and Diversity Conference 2024.

These ideas were discussed by a working party involving staff network chairs and representatives of the equality, diversity and inclusion teams from the Trust and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust to create the final 4 statements.

They are deliberately written in positive language as if already happening. This is so that any feedback given on where this is not a reality for some can be built into actions over the next four years. In this way, expectations around all being responsible for creating a culture of inclusion and belonging are made clear.

Gender pay gap

The gender pay gap shows the differences in average pay between men and women, as opposed to equal pay which legally mandates any 2 people, in comparable jobs, be paid the same, regardless of gender.

We are required to report on:

  • percentage of men and women in each pay quartile
  • mean (average) gender pay gap using hourly pay
  • median gender pay gap using hourly pay
  • percentage of men and women receiving bonus pay (largely overtime and enhancements)
  • mean (average) gender pay gap using bonus pay
  • median gender pay gap using bonus pay

The gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the mean or median hourly rate of pay those male and female colleagues receive. The mean pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. The median pay gap is the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings of men and women. It takes all salaries in the sample, lines them up in order from lowest to highest, and picks the middle-most salary.

The latest gender pay gap report uses snapshot data on 31 March 2023 for staff paid for that period, with data collected for the year 2022-23.

Conclusion from the gender pay gap report 2022-23

Many factors influence the gender pay gap. The key drivers for gender pay include the following.

  • the Trust currently has a high proportion of women (83.25%) overall compared to 16.75% of males
  • the mean hourly rate difference for women is £2.89 (compared to £2.40 in 2022)
  • for males, the median hourly rate is £17.24 compared to women at £15.33 which is £1.91 (£1.85 in 2022) hourly pay difference for women
  • the number of staff receiving bonus pay is too small to provide a comparison
  • there is an underrepresentation of males in the lower pay quartile and an underrepresentation of females in the upper pay quartile

Gender pay gap reports

Useful documents and resources

Equality and diversity documents

WDES reports

WRES reports

Useful links