Share your experience of healthcare staff fatigue
We’ve just launched an investigation to look at fatigue risk in healthcare and its impact on patien…
Read moreEquality and diversity are fundamental to everything that we do as an organisation. From selecting the patient safety issues we investigate, to recruiting individuals to our team and fostering a workplace culture where everyone is included. This is to ensure equitable and fair treatment, access and opportunity for those we work with and the diverse health service users we work on behalf of.
The Public Sector Equality Duty (the equality duty) came into force in April 2011. The equality duty was created under the Equality Act 2010.
All public authorities in England, Scotland and Wales and bodies exercising public functions must comply with obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010. Complying with obligations under equality and human rights law is not only a matter of legal compliance, but it also helps to improve patient safety and protects the rights of patients and their families and carers.
As a public body, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), in the exercise of our functions, must have due regard to the need to:
These are sometimes referred to as the three aims or arms of the general equality duty. The Act explains that having due regard for advancing equality involves:
The protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010 are:
We’re required to publish one or more objectives that we should achieve to meet the equality duty. Our organisation launched in October 2023 and we’re currently working with our Board to set our equality and diversity objectives.
We’ve just launched an investigation to look at fatigue risk in healthcare and its impact on patien…
Read moreOur latest investigation has found that not involving temporary NHS staff in serious incident inves…
Read moreSenior Safety Investigator, Neil Alexander, blogs about the challenges facing the NHS in tackling t…
Read more