What is equality?

“An equal society protects and promotes equal, real freedom and substantive opportunity to live in the ways people value and would choose, so that everyone can flourish. An equal society recognises people’s different needs, situations and goals and removes the barriers that limit what people can do and can be.”

This definition is taken from the UK Equalities Review 2007, which can be found at http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/equalitiesreview/.

What is diversity?

The Scottish Government defines diversity as:

“Recognising and valuing that society is made up of many different groups with different interests, skills, talents and needs.”

This definition is taken from the Scottish Government’s Equality Strategy 2007.

Equality & diversity laws and duties

For more information about equality & diversity, as well as about the equality duties and what organisations must do to meet them, contact the Equality & Human Rights Commission:

Scotlandhelpline: 0845 604 5510

Website: www.equalityhumanrights.com

You can also read about the equality duties in our previous Race, Disability and Gender Equality Schemes, which you can find here: www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/YourRights/EqualityDiversity.

Human Rights

Human Rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world[1]. The Human Rights Act 1998 made some of these rights[2]easier to enforce in the UK. NHS Lothian must respect these rights for all people who use its services, people who it employs, and people who otherwise come into contact with NHS Lothian.

The principles of Human Rights are that people should be treated with:

• Dignity
• Equality
• Autonomy
• Respect
• Fairness

 The Human Rights include the following:

• Life
• Freedom from torture
• Freedom from slavery
• Liberty
• Fair hearing
• Privacy
• Family life
• Social life
• Freedom of thought
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of association
• Marry & found a family
• Property
• Education
• Voting
• Freedom from discrimination

In this Equality & Human Rights Scheme we have addressed Human Rights by including actions to ensure we meet these in our plan. You can see which actions in the plan relate to each Human Right.

For more information about Human Rights in Scotland, contact the Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights:

Telephone: 0141 243 2721

Website: www.scottishhumanrights.com

A Scheme based on results

Organisations in the public sector have had to publish equality schemes for a number of years now. There have been criticisms that these schemes did not produce enough real benefits for the people they were intended to help. Some people have said that they cannot understand equality schemes and that it is hard to measure progress.

This Equality & Human Rights Scheme is different. We have tried to base it on end results – what we call outcomes. This means that you will see what end result we are aiming towards for each action in our plan.

We have used the UK Equalities Measurement Frameworkto set out our Scheme and the actions we intend to take. The Framework is a way of setting out what we intend to do in a way that makes it easier to see what difference our actions have made. This is called focusing on outcomes.

To be able to show that we are making progress towards equality, we have to know how to measure our work. For many actions we want to carry out there are currently no measures. Much of the first year will be spent working out what these measures are.

For more information about the UK Equalities Measurement Framework, contact the Equality & Human Rights Commission as above.

Children and Young People

This Scheme is intended to cover all people who work for or receive services from NHS Lothian. However it is recognised that there are specific needs for children and young people not fully contained within the UK Equalities Measurement Framework upon which this Scheme is based. Children and young people are treated differently in legislation and some equality legislation does not apply to children or is applied differently according to their age. The rights of children (people aged from birth to 16 years) and young people (people aged 16 – 18 years) are set out in an international treaty the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The rights set out in the Convention are legally enforceable, and the Scottish Government is committed to incorporating the principles of the Convention into policy and legislation wherever possible. NHS Lothian shares this commitment and as our action plans develop we will be involving children and young people to ensure we meet their particular needs and rights.

Children and young people in the UK have their own Commissioners whose role is to promote and safeguard their rights. You can find more information about Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People at www.sccyp.org.uk.

The social model of disability

“People are disabled by society’s reaction to impairment which prevents their participation as equal citizens” (Inclusion Scotland, 2004).

A model is a way of understanding a situation. The social model of disability says that people with impairments are disabled by the fact that barriers exist in mainstream society. These barriers can be physical, environmental or attitudinal, and prevent people from gaining access to education, employment, health, information, housing, transport and so on.

The social model of disability is generally accepted as being in opposition to the medical model of disability. The medical model says that the difficulties that people with impairments face are caused by the ways that their bodies are shaped or experienced.[3]

This Equality & Human Rights Scheme is built on the social model of disability. It aims to address the barriers that disable people and prevent them from accessing effective health care and information about their health, and from gaining fulfilling employment with NHS Lothian.

You can find out more about the social and medical models of disability here:  http://www.lothiancil.org.uk/fileuploads/disability-factsheet-1-3913.doc.

[1]Equality & Human Rights Commission 2009

[2]The Human Rights Act 1998 made the rights included in the European Convention of Human Rights directly enforceable in courts in the UK.

[3]Lothian Centre for Integrated Living factsheet 5 2008