Equality and diversity

We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equality, and prospective employees will not be discriminated against - regardless of disability, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, marital status or working hours.

As ever, there is more for us to do and we want to develop an integrated approach to ensure that inclusion for all, will be a sustainable philosophy for everyone who accesses our services and who work with us.

We continue to monitor our progress against our equality priorities and our Equality Delivery System action plan. We are beginning to use the refreshed Equality Delivery System 2. This will provide us with a great opportunity to further demonstrate how, as an organisation, we are not only meeting our public sector duty under the Equality Act 2010 but how far we have come in terms of eliminating discrimination and increasing inclusion to improve patient and staff experience. You can read our latest EDS2 Summary Report[pdf] 689KB for further information.

NHS Equality Delivery System
The refreshed EDS2 has arisen out of NHS England’s commitment to an inclusive NHS that is fair and accessible to all. EDS2 is supported by the NHS Trust Development Authority. Like the original EDS, EDS2 has been designed in collaboration with the NHS and its purpose remains the same: to drive up equality performance and embed equality into mainstream NHS business.
People with disabilities
We are committed to the employment and career development of disabled people. To demonstrate our commitment, we have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme (opens in a new window), this means you are guaranteed an interview if you meet the basic conditions of the job.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender network
Homophobia has no place in society and it definitely doesn't have a place in the modern NHS. The network not only actively supports all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of staff and their allies but LGBT patients.

Equality Delivery System

The Equality Delivery System (EDS) is a system that helps NHS organisations improve the services they provide for their local communities and provide better working environments, free of discrimination, for those who work in the NHS, while meeting the requirements of the Equality Act 2010. The EDS was developed by the NHS, for the NHS, taking inspiration from existing work and good practice.

Background to the EDS

The EDS was first launched for the NHS in November 2011. In November 2012, Shared Intelligence published their report ‘Evaluation of the equality delivery system for the NHS’ which looked at how the EDS had been adopted across NHS organisations. Based on this evaluation and subsequent engagement with the NHS and key stakeholders, a refreshed EDS – known as EDS2 – was made available in November 2013.

A review of the EDS2 was undertaken to incorporate system changes and take account of the new system architecture. Through collaboration and co-production and taking into account the impact of COVID-19, the EDS has been updated and EDS 2022 is now available for live testing during 2022/23.

The main purpose of the EDS was, and remains, to help local NHS systems and organisations, in discussion with local partners and local populations, review and improve their performance for people with characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010. By using the EDS 2022, NHS organisations can also be helped to deliver on the Public Sector Equality Duty.

EDS 2022 is aligned to NHS England’s Long Term Plan and its commitment to an inclusive NHS that is fair and accessible to all. The EDS 2022 suite of documents and supporting resources are available at the bottom of this page.

Gender pay gap

New regulations that took effect on 31 March 2017 (The Equality Act 2010 - Specific Duties and Public Authorities - Regulations 2017) require all public sector organisations in England employing 250 or more staff to publish gender pay gap information. The Trust has recently published it's 2020 gender pay gap report. This can be found below along with the 2017-2018 report:

Gender Pay Gap Report - snapshot - 31 March [pdf] 473KB

Epsom and St Helier hospitals gender pay gap report 2019-20 [pdf] 743KB

Epsom and St Helier hospitals gender pay gap report 2017-18 [pdf] 309KB

Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES)

The NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard was developed to ensure employees from black and ethnic minority (BME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace.

Most recent report

WRES Report 2024

Archived Reports and Action Plan

Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) Report and Action Plan 2019-20 [docx] 86KB

Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES)

Workforce Disability Equality Standard

The Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) is a set of ten specific measures (metrics) that enable NHS organisations such as Epsom and St Helier to compare the experiences of disabled and non-disabled staff. This information is then used by the the Trust to develop a local action plan and demonstrate our progress against the indicators of disability equality.

Equality and diversity

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