One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

New equality guide for the NHS

28/01/16 . News

The Forum has helped develop a new framework for NHS organisations to engage on equality with voluntary sector organisations. 

The Equality Delivery System (EDS2) is designed to help NHS organisations to continuously improve their performance on equality and meet their equality duties under the 2010 Equality Act. Now included in the NHS standard contract and the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Assurance Framework, this means all NHS organisations are obliged to use EDS2 as part of their contractual and assurance obligations. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) will also look at a Trust’s EDS to look for potential areas for inspection and to determine if the Trust is ‘well led’. 

The Forum's Partnerships, Engagement and Equalities Officer Errol Franklin, who worked on the guide, said: 'this is good news for the voluntary sector as well as for equality within the NHS. The NHS don't always realise how the voluntary and community sector are often well-placed to help them. They have links and expertise with specific communities that health services may have difficulties in engaging with. The guide explores how the local voluntary and community sector can help NHS organisations to engage communities and, by extension, to implement EDS2 better.'

The Equality Delivery System is a tool developed by the NHS for the NHS, led by the Equality and Diversity Council in partnership with the Race Equality Foundation, the LGBT Foundation and Disability Rights UK as well as the Forum. It will help local NHS organisations, in discussion with local partners including local communities, to review and improve their performance for people with characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010. (The protected characteristics include age, disability, gender, reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.)

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator

Contact
Address
  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).