EMAS is committed to the active promotion of equality and human rights to ensure fair and equal access to services and ensuring the care and welfare of all patients. 

This means respecting and involving service users and organisations such as Healthwatch, local authorities, equality networks and the voluntary sector.

This demonstrates our commitment to respond to discrimination and harassment, promoting equality of opportunity, valuing diversity and ensuring dignity and respect whilst we provide treatment and care. 

This commitment also extends to the way in which we involve, support, empower and develop our staff.

Our Head of Wellbeing and Inclusion provides advice and support and drives progress on equalities across the Trust. For example, equality and diversity learning outcomes are integrated into the induction process and essential education, and we have a Health, Wellbeing and Inclusion Group that monitors progress on equality and diversity. 

You can read our Equality every day at EMAS document which gives you more information on Equality and Diversity within the Trust. 

You can also read our Public Sector Equality Duty document. The Public Sector Equality Duty is a duty that all public bodies, and others carrying out public functions, must comply with.

In 2014, the NHS Equality and Diversity Council announced that it had agreed action to ensure employees from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace. 

The Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) was implemented to improve equality across the NHS, starting from April 2015. The WRES requires all NHS organisations to demonstrate progress against nine detailed indicators of workforce equality, including a specific indicator to address the low levels of BME Board representation. 

You can also read our Workforce Race Equality Standard document and access the previous standard documents below:

The EDS is a toolkit that can help NHS organisations improve the services they provide for their local communities, consider health inequalities in their locality and provide better working environments, free of discrimination, for those who work in the NHS. Developed by the NHS for the NHS, the EDS also helps NHS organisations to meet the public sector Equality Duty.

The document 'Evaluation of the Equality Delivery System (EDS) for the NHS' showcases the good practice being undertaken by Trusts across the country, including East Midlands Ambulance Service.

More about the NHS Equality Delivery System

Equality Delivery System Report 2022

Equality Delivery System Report 2023