Equality schemes

Our local population

Newcastle upon Tyne is home to nearly 285,000 people and its population is steadily growing as increasing numbers of people come here to study, work and settle.  One of the most popular cities in the UK, Newcastle already has an extremely diverse and multi-cultural community.  

More and more younger people are arriving to enjoy the city’s vibrant lifestyle and exciting job prospects, and there is a growing older population, as improvements in healthcare enables our more mature residents to enjoy a better quality of life, for longer than ever before.

Our patients

We treat thousands of people here every year at the Newcastle Hospitals, taking care of our local population and beyond with some patients coming here from overseas. 

We are committed to providing the best care possible and believe that this is dependent on our patients and their families feeling safe, understood, and treated with respect and compassion - that they have been listened to and provided with a clear information to enable them to make informed choices and have access to the support and advice we have to offer.

We run a well established Equality & Diversity Group which has patient representation to ensure clear patient voice and involvement and we also work closely with our local Patient and Public Involvement and Community Advisory Panels to encourage patient engagement on a diverse range of issues.

Our staff

Our staff make up the most important asset of our hospitals – without them we would not be able to provide such a high quality service for our patients.  We know that a happy workforce feels motivated, valued and supported and have worked hard to promote a culture across the organisation advocating a high regard for mutual respect amongst our employees, from the top to the bottom.

To fortify this ethos, and in keeping with Government policy, we have developed a range of policies for staff to refer to and we have also established equality schemes embracing everyone.  We are working towards a single equality scheme that will bring together all aspects of equality and diversity including gender, age, religion and sexual orientation along with race and disability equality.