The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is pleased to publish the Trust’s first Disability Equality Scheme (DES). The Trust welcomes the new public sector duty, and supports its aim to break down barriers for disabled people, improve access to services, and improve outcomes throughout the Public Sector.

As an NHS organisation, we are committed to playing our part in delivering a health service where Equality and Diversity are embraced by all, and communicated in the everyday work of our staff.

We are determined that this DES will result in real outcomes, and practical improvements, in the day to day life and practical experience of the deaf and disabled who come into contact with our services.

The commitment of our staff will enable us to deliver these outcomes and improvements, and the Trust will provide the leadership, support, and training they need to ensure success.

The aim of this DES is to create a culture based on accurate knowledge and positive attitudes, to increase understanding of, and address the barriers which affect, the experiences of disabled people. In line with the Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF), this will be achieved by working to ensure that disability equality is part of all jobs, and that everything everyone does is embedded in the organisation.

The Trust is keen to acknowledge and recognise the significant work already carried out by a number of groups in this area, including the Health Action Zone, Joint Advisory Group (Disability). It is the intention of the scheme to build upon this foundation and continue to make improvements for all affected by sensory and physical disability.

Aims of the Trust

• To promote equality in health care and, in collaboration with other organisations, be responsive to the needs and wishes of patients and their relatives.
• To be accessible and user friendly, and to ensure that patients continue to receive the supportive and personalised care they need.
• To enable staff to deliver a high quality of service to patients, recognise the commitment of staff, and endeavour to develop and reward them appropriately.
• To maintain and enhance our reputation as a centre of excellence in the fields of teaching, training, and research, and to further consolidate our relationships with the two local universities and other relevant organisations.
• To secure the appropriate resources, within which we will seek to operate effectively and efficiently to ensure value for money.
• To address the organisational and communications challenges posed within a large, technically complex, and diverse organisation. 
• To develop the existing strong patterns of team work and shared purpose, and use these as a foundation for further co-operation in the changing patters of health care delivery.
• To ensure that the benefits of development, advances, and innovations in health care, continue to be made available to patients and shared with other service providers.

In conclusion, the Trust’s vision aims to ensure that all people have the same opportunities to access the best possible health services, and are treated with dignity and respect. This will support the best health outcomes, irrespective of their individual circumstances, or any conditions that may otherwise affect them.

This section examines the key concept that drives this Disability Equality Scheme – the Social Model of Disability, and the legislative framework that underpins it.

The Social Model of Disability

This DES recognises the Social Model of Disability, and its view that the person is disabled not by the fact that they cannot walk up the stairs to access the building, but by the fact that there is no alternative means of entering the building to render it accessible. The social model, in its simplest form, changes the focus away from people’s impairments and towards removing the barriers that those perceived as disabled face in everyday life, such as those placed by the built environment, how society is organised, attitudes and prejudice.

Conversely, the Medical Model of Disability focuses on the impairment of the individual as the core of the problem, believing that medical treatment or cures must be used to ‘normalise’ the individual. This model is rejected by organisations of disabled people.

Legislative Framework

The Disability Discrimination Act was introduced in 1995 and was implemented fully by October 2004. The Act has provided individual disabled people – as defined using the Medical Model of Disability approach in the act, the ability to take legal action against employers and providers of goods and services if they feel that they are being discriminated against on the grounds that they are a disabled person. The Act is a curious mixture of medical definition tagged on to a rights-based social model approach.

The Act defines disability as:

• “A physical or mental impairment which has a substantial, long term (lasting or having lasted twelve months or the rest of a person’s life), adverse effect, on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”

Whilst the Act has been useful in helping to achieve some changes, the fact that it has relied on individuals to take action has always been a weakness of the legislation.

The Disability Discrimination Act was amended in 2005 by the addition of Chapter 13 and Schedules. An important change was in the definition of disability. Now people with a progressive condition such as muscular dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis, HIV, AIDS or cancer are covered by the Act from the point of diagnosis. In addition with the amendment, mental health conditions no longer have to be ‘Clinically well recognised’.

The Disability Equality Duty for the Public Sector was introduced in the 2005 Act. The new duty will:

• Change cultures within public bodies
• Improve disability equality in public bodies
• Help end discrimination against disabled people
• Help prioritise the reduction of the impact on disabled people of services or policies
• Ensure public bodies involve disabled people 
• Deliver high-quality performance.

The Act places a general duty to promote disability equality on all public authorities. When an organisation carries out its functions, it must give due weight (have ‘due regard’) to the need in relation to disabled people to:

• Promote equality of opportunity
• Eliminate unlawful discrimination
• Eliminate harassment related to disability
• Promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• Encourage participation in public life 
• Take steps to take account of disabled persons’ disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons.

To enable the achievement of the above general duties, the Act has introduced the Specific Duty that all public bodies by December 4th 2006 must publish a Disability Equality Scheme.