Our equality objectives 2025-2029

We want to tackle inequality to make sure everyone has good health and social care with equal access, experience and outcomes.

This is in line with our strategy and our core purpose.

We also have a duty to publish equality objectives to meet Equality Act 2010 regulations.

We will take appropriate regulatory action or speak up where care isn't good enough for any groups of people.

These 4 equality objectives are priorities and aim to help to deliver equality for:

• people who use health and social care services, or people who have more difficulty accessing these services
• people working in health and social care
• the health and care providers that we regulate
• our own workforce.

How we developed our equality objectives

We used our strategy and its equality impact assessment to set these objectives. We then developed them by:

• listening to a range of stakeholders, including asking ‘what one thing’ people would do as a priority
• analysing written evidence
• reviewing progress on our previous equality objectives 2021-2025
• assessing our performance against good regulatory practice in addressing inequalities.

How we define groups of people

To reduce inequalities in health and care services, we need to focus on the quality of care for people most likely to have poorer access, experience and outcomes. This does not mean that we are looking for poor care – it means we are looking for good care for these people.

Core20PLUS

NHS England has developed an approach to help reduce health inequalities called Core20PLUS. This approach helps identify groups of people most likely to have poorer access, experience or outcomes of health and care.

Core20

The Core20 are the most deprived 20% of the national population, as identified by the national index of multiple deprivation.

PLUS

The PLUS population groups are identified at a local level and include:

• ethnic minority communities
• people with a learning disability and autistic people
• people with multiple long-term health conditions
• other groups that share protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010
• groups experiencing social exclusion, known as inclusion health groups.

Inclusion health groups include:

• people who experience homelessness
• people with drug and alcohol dependence
• vulnerable migrants and refugees
• Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities
• people in contact with the justice system
• victims of modern slavery
• sex workers
• other marginalised groups.

How we will measure success

Scoping and developing success measures for the new equality objectives is underway. We will report on progress in meeting our equality objectives in our annual reports. We will review our equality objectives mid-way through the 4-year period. If necessary, we will revise our objectives from April 2027 as we move from our current reset and rebuild work.

Our 2025-2029 objectives

1. Amplifying voices of people more likely to have a poorer care experience or outcomes or difficulty accessing care

We will work with and hear from people most likely to have a poorer experience of care aligned with the NHS Core20PLUS approach across our different roles and functions. This will strengthen the ways we uphold rights and challenge inequality. We will embed anti-racism principles and the social model of disability.

Areas of focus include:

• people most likely to have a poorer experience of care, as we rebuild our assessment approach and systems
• the accessibility of our communication
• increasing the use of Experts by Experience with specific protected characteristics
• scoping how we build psychological safety and support for people raising concerns about inequalities or discrimination
• developing our approach to case-tracking
• developing our work delivered through the current equality objectives on local inequalities outreach.

2. Develop systems to gather equality data to better understand and respond to equality risks

We will invest in ways to capture equality data across our systems, particularly where we are the primary data collector.

This is vital for our anti-racism work, meeting the Public Sector Equality Duty and our core ambition for tackling inequalities. This means building equality considerations into immediate data development and longer-term data strategy. We have already carried out work to align our data collection categories with other bodies.

3. Improve equity by using our regulatory and monitoring activities

We will set targets to improve our assessments of equity year on year.

We will start by increasing assessment of workforce equality, diversity and inclusion when looking at the well-led key question. This builds on our research findings which show the impact of workplace inequality on the quality of care people receive. It has a wide reach across all sectors and strongly contributes to our anti-racism commitments.

Quality of assessments is as important as volume. We will increase use of new equality, diversity and inclusion specialist advisors and develop our approach to assessing workforce equality, diversity, and inclusion. We will base this work on our research recommendations.

We will build our capacity to assess equity in service delivery and outcomes for specific groups. This will start with work to:

• assess services for people with sickle cell disease and thalassemia
• develop our work on assessing and sharing good practice on how mental health services are implementing the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework, including recommendations from our research into Black men’s mental health.

The priority areas will be reviewed each year.

We will make sure that our teams have training on health inequalities so we can carry out our assessments well.

4. Our inclusive workforce

We will focus on 3 priority areas from our equity, diversity and inclusion strategy for 2024-2027:

1. Foster inclusion and belonging for our colleagues

We respect, value, and recognise the contributions of all our colleagues

We strive for an inclusive and accessible working environment that is ’lived’ by all. This means we tailor support for everyone, for example colleagues with protected characteristics, such as a wide range of ages and disabled colleagues, as well as wider diversity, for example colleagues with caring responsibilities and from a lower socio-economic background.

We also ensure that every individual takes personal responsibility for being anti-ableist and anti-racist, so colleagues can have fair experiences and interactions. Our approach helps us to ensure colleagues feel respected, accepted, and valued for their meaningful contributions in our work and decisions.

2. Recruit talented colleagues

We make better decisions informed by colleagues who represent the communities we serve

We provide an inclusive and equitable recruitment experience, so there is fair opportunity for people from all backgrounds and with any protected characteristics, including individuals with caring responsibilities. For example, we remove barriers by using adjustments for prospective disabled colleagues.

Our approach helps us to attract and appoint the best skills and expertise at all organisational levels from the communities we serve, so we are equipped to make better decisions for our work.

3. Invest in our colleagues

We empower and grow our colleagues, supporting career journeys

We enhance career development for everyone, tailoring our approach for individual needs, as we value the talents and skills of all colleagues from the communities we serve. As part of this, we address inequalities and dismantle barriers. Our approach helps us to strategically use a range of skills and experiences, recognising that diversity enriches our collective capabilities, so we improve the work we do.