All services in Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield
Overview
As part our responsibility to ensure we maintain our legal obligations for equality, the Trust completes an annual process called the ‘Equality Delivery System 2’ or ‘EDS2’ to assess how well we are doing in maintain our equality duties.
The Trust has an annual responsibility to deliver EDS2 through a process of involvement which captures the voice and views of both staff, people who use services and stakeholders on how well we are doing in meeting our equality duty.
The Equality Delivery System (EDS) was commissioned by the national Equality and Diversity Council in 2010 and launched in July 2011. A refreshed EDS known as EDS2 was made available in November 2013.
The main purpose of the EDS2 was to:
- Help local NHS organisations, in discussion with local partners including local populations, to review and improve their performance for people with characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010.
- Help provide better working environments, free of discrimination, for those who work in the NHS.
- Assist NHS organisations to deliver on the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)
EDS2 requires the Trust to engage with both its staff and key stakeholders to identify an overall grading based on a set of indicators. The theme for people who use our services and key stakeholders for 2021/2022 was focused on how well the Trust ensured the ‘provision and restoration of mental health services during the pandemic’ for all protected groups. The process for involving staff includes asking a consistent set of questions each year that can be used to identify our progress, these are not reported in this summary.
Who did you consult with and what did you ask?
- Process for involving people who use service and stakeholders:
Two digital involvement workshops with Trust service users, carers, staff and external stakeholders including Healthwatch for each “place” were run in January 2022. These had been delayed due to Covid and should have taken place prior to April 2021 to support the forthcoming year.
The theme for 2021/2022 EDS2 was the ‘The provision and restoration of mental health services during the pandemic’. Panel members were recruited for the workshops from:
- People who use our services including carers, friends and families
- Members and governors
- Trust volunteers
- Third sector organisations– using our community mapping of over 200+
- Recovery colleges, Spirit in Mind and Creative Mind
- Healthwatch
Prior to the workshops a desktop review of all the insight and data captured over the past 18 months was broken down into key themes for each of the protected groups, including carers.
This insight from partners such as Healthwatch, complaints, compliments, friends and family feedback, NHS Choices and Care Opinion provided further information and insight as to how well we had done over the past year. This information alongside examples of work the Trust had done over the year was then recorded and presented on slides, this included:
- Using the findings from the Trust ‘reset and recovery service user survey’ which asked questions relating to how effective services were during this period, including digital access and estates.
- Pulling together examples of work for each protected group demonstrating the work that had taken place to address inequalities and differential impacts for protected groups during this time.
Workshops members were invited to listen to the Trust’s evidence and score our progress using an EDS2 grading framework and provide comment. For those unable to attend the digital workshops, the same information was shared directly, and participants were asked to grade using a format that was inclusive such as postal or verbal. The scores from all approaches were combined to create an overall final grading.
What did they tell you?
The feedback from those people who use services and stakeholders is set out below:
Goal 1: From those responding we asked people to tell us how well they thought we had done to achieve better health outcomes during the pandemic.
77% of those who attended the two workshops graded the Trust on this question as Excelling/Achieving.
Comments made in feedback:
“Lots of pieces of good work have been undertaken during the pandemic for staff, service users/carers and partners. Well done!”
“The work that has been done has been somewhat successful but there is still room to improve.”
“I think you are doing lots to involve different cohorts”
“From the evidence shown it is clear that the NHS are doing this very well and in such difficult times. However, there is always more than can be done.”
Goal 2: The Trust then asked how well people think we did to improve patient experience of services during the pandemic.
67% of those who attended the workshop graded the Trust at Excelling and Achieving grade.
Comments made in feedback:
“Some protected groups may have found accessing information and technology more difficult – further training could be accessed in this area. Feedback has shown that not everyone finds it easy to access things such as a complaints procedure.”
“Keeping service users informed, involved and heard is imperative for wellbeing and staying well.”
“Managed the pandemic well, used new methods of communication with clients when face to face appointments were not possible for all clients.”
“Some communities have greater access to NHS services than others. However it is clear to see that work is being done to try and improve that.”
“Making the quick decision EIA sounds like a great idea that meant lots of decisions where considered through this lense and ensured people are considered in the approach”
The Trust then asked people to provide an overall grade for both Goals 1 and 2 overall.
From all those attending 80% stated the Trust were Achieving/Excelling
Comments made in feedback:
“Providing the best patient centred care possible, covering people from all groups”
“I think overall the trust is doing great, a good level of consideration is given and events such as this show a strong desire to do well for each person.”
“Considering the difficultly we have experienced due to covid restrictions etc I believe the trust is excelling at data collection, patient involvement and analysis etc with the EIAs”
“Mechanisms are in place to identify how different groups fare, which currently suggest there is still some disparity”
“Great work -keep up the good work!”
What did we do?
As EDS2 is a combined score of all goals including staff, a panel of members representing the Trust Equality, Inclusion and Involvement Committee (EIIC) were pulled together to hear the evidence from both the staff survey and workshops.
An agreed overall grading based on a Trust self-assessment of all the evidence resulted in an overall grade of ‘Achieving’. This means that the Trust has achieved in its duty to support people from most protected groups during the pandemic.
A report of findings on the evidence gathered during 2021/2022 to support EDS2 and examples of case studies and stories has been complied and submitted as evidence to NHSE England/Improvement and is available on the Trust website.
Any areas for improvement identified throughout this process have now been included in the Trust wide action plan for equality. This will ensure that any learning on further improvements will be addressed.
Where can you find more information about this work?
To find out more about EDS2 and the evidence gathered, including stories is now available on the Trust website. Go to: How well are we doing? – South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Engagement location: Trustwide
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