Barts Health Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessment Report

Barts Health Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessment ReportIssues around staffing Clinical staff will be unaffected by merger. However, corporate staff (finance, HR, IT) willface redundancies – is there any equality issue here?Pay weighting – currently there are inner and outer London allowances. How will this bemanaged when everyone works for one organisation?Transport is an issue for staff too – will they be required to move around sites?Issues affecting patients Transport for patients between all the different sites is a huge issue – can the neworganisation do something about this?Responding to the diversity of the population will be a big problem – the neworganisation will have to build a representative workforce, and also provide effective,community-centred careThe new organisation should focus on public health and not just primary/acute healthIt is important to build on Whipps Cross’ experience of revolutionising patient careSummaryAlthough opportunities for detailed discussion were limited at this event and a small group ofpeople were consulted, we did get a sense that staff experience of inequality anddiscrimination can differ depending on which part of a Trust people work in. Staff wereequally keen to discuss staff inequality issues as they were issues of patient equality.Newham Staff Consultation7 February 2012, three staff presentViews about the merger and initial EHRIAIt was felt that the merger alone will not solve health inequalities. It needs a plannedapproach from a number of other parties (including health). All three said that they were notreassured by what they had been hearing about the merger. One respondent said, “it’s lesslike a merger and more like a takeover: even the name is ‘Barts Health’.” For that respondentit felt like Newham is having to acquiesce to Barts and the London, particularly in relation topemployment: “all the senior appointments are from Barts.” This raises concerns aboutequality and fairness going forward.It is important to note, however, that another respondent said they could understand why theBarts name had been kept as it is prestigious and well known. Participants all felt there is no‘best’ hospital and that all have different elements of expertise.183