Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Launched in 2022, this is the first joint Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy across the Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust and Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust Partnership.

We are confident that our joint approach is helping to address inequalities, spread good practice, and improve outcomes for patients, carers and staff.  

Read our Equality Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022-2025 [pdf] 2MB

Launched last year, our three-year People and organisational Development Strategy’s purpose is to work with our communities to improve the mental health of people in the five boroughs we serve.

Strategy supports our overall Partnership Strategy, as well as other underpinning Partnership strategies, such as our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Clinical Strategy. These describe what is needed for the Partnership to thrive and become a high performing organisation, for the benefit of our service users, carers, staff, and communities.

Read the North London Mental Health Partnership People and Organisational Strategy 2023-2026 [pdf] 2MB

The North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) will identify and take action to tackle structural racism and wider health inequalities, embedding reflection and learning at all levels.

The Partnership is committed to embedding an overt strong anti-racism approach:

• in the places where our people work
• in the provision of the care, we provide
• across all systems of health and care we deliver for the people of North Central London

We openly acknowledge the repeated negative experiences of staff from multiple ethnic groups within our NHS health and care system

We recognise that these lived experiences arise from embedded policies, practices, and processes, many of which have become normalised and unchallenged in our systems; representing (for staff) institutionalised racism.

We further acknowledge that racism serves as an issue in and of itself, but also as a surrogate for discriminatory practices against other characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, belief, disability, and others that can detrimentally intersect for individuals.

As set out in our Strategy, and our People and Organisational Development Strategy and EDI Strategy, we will create environments where all our staff can be their authentic selves and thus deliver to their best potential and progress to their ultimate goals. 

We commit to actively seeking to identify, measure and call out discriminatory practice and to take steps to deal consistently and effectively with poor behaviour where present in any of our staff or organisations. We will not be complicit by silence.

The NHS England – London Promise

• We will listen and hear when staff raise concerns
• We will choose to be curious, humble and considerate and avoid defensive thinking. We will take action where discrimination is evident
• We will pro-actively co-design new systems with staff and stakeholders and institute polices, practices and cultural expectations for belonging and inclusion
• We will embed a strategic approach to commissioning to help reduce systemic bias, focused on creating the right environment for reducing systemic bias in commissioning that will improve patient care and experience
• We will hold ourselves accountable, individually and collectively, as leaders to delivering to these commitments

We are committed to the elimination of unlawful and unfair discrimination and value the differences that a diverse workforce brings to the organisation. 

We aim to be a fair employer and strive to achieve equality of opportunity for all, creating inclusive workplace environments where everyone can work effectively towards the provision of better healthcare.

As a Partnership, we have a comprehensive policy, setting out how it will work to deliver high quality services to all in fair and equitable ways.

The Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 came into force on 1 October 2010. It brings together over 116 separate pieces of legislation into one single Act so that it is easier to use. It sets out the personal characteristics that are protected by the law and the behaviour that is unlawful. The nine main pieces of legislation that have merged are:

• the Equal Pay Act 1970
• the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
• the Race Relations Act 1976
• the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
• the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
• the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
• the Equality Act 2006, Part 2
• the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007

Everyone in Britain is protected by the Equality Act. The protected characteristics under the Act are:

Age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.

The Partnership recognises the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 – Our common humanity makes us equal in worth, dignity and rights, in accepting this principle we include other groups who could experience inequality when analysing equality impact, including carers, homeless, travelling communities, unemployed, people resident within deprived areas, different socioeconomic groups such as low income families, asylum seekers, refugees, and prisoners.

The Human Rights Act 1998

The Human Rights Act 1998 sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that everyone in the UK is entitled to. It incorporates the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic British law. The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK in October 2000.

The Act sets out your human rights in a series of ‘Articles’. Each Article deals with a different right. These are all taken from the ECHR and are commonly known as ‘the Convention Rights’.

The Act has also brought some important changes to the Mental Health Act and the Partnership will continue to take account of these rights in both employment and service delivery, and in particular the rights of individuals detained under the Mental Health Act.

Other legislation

• The Health and Care Act
• Mental Health Law Act
• Social Value Act