Equality & Diversity

Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust  welcomes all staff, patients and their families.  We are committed to celebrating and understanding diversity and making our services accessible and easy for everyone to use.

Protected characteristic groups

In line with the Equality Act 2010, we recognise that people from any of the following groups (and more) may be affected by discrimination and we are committed to challenging discrimination and making our services welcoming and friendly to all:

  • Age
  • Disability
  • Gender reassignment (the transgender community)
  • Marriage and civil partnership
  • Pregnancy and maternity
  • Race
  • Religion and belief
  • Sex (gender e.g. male or female)
  • Sexual orientation (heterosexual, gay, etc)

Diversity Training           

  • All Trust staff are required to complete Equality and Diversity e-learning.
  • The Trust Equality and Diversity Lead can run diversity training sessions for teams and individuals as needed.  Please contact us on equality@sompar.nhs.uk for more information.

Equality Delivery System            

The Equality Delivery System is a system that the NHS uses to ensure that everyone can access  health treatment and no one suffers from discrimination. The EDS not only covers people from Protected Characteristics Groups but also other people who may suffer stigma, such as homeless people.

You can find more information about the Equality Delivery System at NHS England.

The Trust reports annual on what it is doing to meet its obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Equality Duty.

Somerset Partnership’s Equality Objectives for 2019-2024 are

  1. We will work with Communities to improve the opportunities for integration and cohesion.
  2. We will improve public understanding of mental health.
  3. We will work with the Gypsy and Traveller community to improve relationships.
  4. We will create an Equality Working group for staff in the Public Sector in Somerset.
  5. We will implement and review the Accessibility Information Standard to create consistency around its implementation.

 Our Equality Publications

Workforce Race Equality Standard

As part of the NHS action to ensure employees from black and ethnic minority (BME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace, each Trust is required to complete and publish its progress against the new Workforce Race Equality Standard.

The move follows recent reports which have highlighted disparities in the number of BME people in senior leadership positions across the NHS, as well as lower levels of wellbeing amongst the BME population.

At Somerset Partnership we have set out our plans and published our Workforce Race Equality Standard progress here:

Gender Pay Gap

This report provides the Trust’s first Gender Pay Gap (GPG) information based on data for the period including the first snapshot date of 31 March 2018.

It is published in line with the requirements set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.