Equality and Diversity Champions
- Danielle Johnson (Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust)
- Shajia Shahid
- Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.
Equality and Diversity blog
What is an Equality and Diversity Champion?
In order to effectively address and maintain equality and diversity, ANS feel that a designated role is important for instilling an accepting and inclusive workplace culture. Previous to our appointments, Sara Callen held the role and started the focus into Equality and Diversity. We feel this gives us a good standing to develop this further for ANS. The ‘champion’ is a non-executive/volunteer role. Our duties closely mirror those outlined by the Science Council and include:
- Acting as a contact for issues regarding equality and diversity, affecting the ANS
- Actively engaging with members to raise equality/diversity issues
- Promoting the organisation’s vision for equality, diversity and inclusion to the relevant, wider, communities
- Attending council meetings to feedback relevant information on current equality and diversity legislation and guidance
- Prompting and informing discussions surrounding equality and diversity at council meetings
Annually updating ANS members on our strategic approach to diversity and any progress identified
ANS Declaration and core values
ANS are committed to promoting equality and diversity in the Neurophysiology workforce and in becoming a sustainable inclusive organisation that treats everyone equally and fairly, regardless of gender, age, race, marital status, pregnancy, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment. This is in line with relevant guidelines and legislation. By promoting equality, diversity and inclusion, ANS will create opportunity for any individual wishing to fulfill their scientific potential, irrespective of their background or circumstances.
What is Equality and Diversity?
UK legislation requires, under the Equality Act 2010, that all organisations should meet their legal duties of promoting and maintaining equality and diversity in the workplace. Under this act, there are 9 protected characteristics: gender, age, race, marital status, pregnancy, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.
Maintaining equality and diversity according to legislation is important to ensure individuals are not treated differently based on these specific protected characteristics, and that instead we recognise and value people’s differences to promote an inclusive culture. This in turn will result in attracting the widest possible talent to the neurophysiology workforce whilst fostering a greater diversity of ideas and skills. Additionally, equality and diversity is important for addressing barriers to accessing opportunities and rectify this by providing training where appropriate.
Equality and diversity in healthcare is important when working with patients to ensure all patients are treated fairly. It is one of 6 main values in the NHS Constitution – ‘Everyone counts’. It is important to maintain for staff as well, for the reasons mentioned above, but also to ensure that the NHS workforce is representative of the diverse public that we serve.
Whilst ANS strives towards continued development across all areas of equality and diversity, it is also important to celebrate the level of equality and diversity that already exists in our workplace thanks to the previous efforts and on-going work in the field and in the NHS. Acknowledging current strengths will allow us to recognise positive achievements and use them to maintain our high level of standards going forward.
As part of this, we have created a blog to keep members up to date with our work, as well as to provide information and perspectives into the topic of equality and diversity;
We hope that you find this useful and interesting, and please feel free to subscribe if you would like to stay engaged!
Legislation – Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 is a legislation put together by merging previous single acts covering anti-discrimination. This therefore replaced those single acts, meaning that any complaints and unlawful acts occurring after 1st October 2010 would come under the Equality Act 2010. This act involved some updates and changes, and overall provides protection regarding the 9 characteristics listed above – gender, age, race, marital status, pregnancy, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.
Further information about the Equality Act 2010 can be found here
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance
What is our forward-looking plan?
• Keep the website up-to-date with information and perspectives on equality and diversity.
• Update members on any changes in policy.
• Listen to members’ views on equality and diversity to allow for an inclusive workplace.
• Work with the Science Council to collect data regarding the spread of the 9 protected characteristics in Neurophysiology.
From this, we can strive to maintain equality and diversity in our organisation.
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