Equality Outcomes
Our commitment to delivering equality
As a public body in Scotland, East Lothian Integration Joint Board (IJB) is committed to improving life chances, experiences and health / social outcomes for the community it serves, its staff and the people that it works with to deliver services.
Our Equality Outcomes set out what we aim to achieve, through our actions as planners and commissioners of services for health and social care in East Lothian.
The Public Sector Equality Duty is part of Equality Act 2010, an act that sets out UK laws that seek to address inequality and discrimination. The Duty has three aims, referred to as the ‘general needs’:
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other prohibited conduct.
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.
- Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
East Lothian's IJB Equality Outcomes 2025-2029 
Outcome 1: Participation and Co-production
Outcome 2: Dignity and Respect
Outcome 4: Enabling Independence
Outcome 5: Addressing Health Inequalities
Outcome 1: Participation and Co-production
We will place human rights at the heart of our approach to community engagement.
- We will take time to listen to the needs of our community, remove barriers to participation and empower people to participate in health and social care planning.
- We will build healthy, long-term relationships with the community based on transparency, honesty, trust and equality.
How do we plan to achieve this?
- With our third sector partners and the community we will identify, commit to and carry out activities that help us meet the needs of everyone, remove barriers to participation and enable everyone to feel they have a seat at the table.
- East Lothian IJB will direct, enable and support the co-production of an East Lothian model of community engagement that places people at the centre of options appraisal, planning, decision making and evaluation. The model will focus on inclusivity, community empowerment and meeting the diverse communication, physical and social needs of everyone.
- East Lothian IJB will integrate the Independent Community Panel into its Programme Boards and governance structures, supporting and empowering the panel to become a key source of community voices in East Lothian.
- We will work East Lothian Council, NHS Lothian and other peer cross the Lothians to achieve actions identified in BSL plans in 2024.
- We commit to improving the accessibility of our communications by making efforts to understand and meet the needs of service users and engagement audiences. For example, producing materials in languages other than English, including BSL, and providing large font, easy read or braille formats to meet a broad variety of needs.
Outcome 2: Dignity and Respect
Everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
- People of all abilities, ages, races and ethnic backgrounds, religions, sexual orientations, genders and /or those experiencing social and health disadvantages feel they are treated with dignity and respect.
- Staff have an awareness of different cultures that supports them to carry out their role.
How do we plan to achieve this?
- We will work with our third sector partners and other community groups to understand more about how different groups are feeling in relation to feeling respected when accessing health and social care services.
- Meeting People’s Needs:
- Together with our third sector partners and the community we will identify, commit to and carry out activities that help us meet community needs for dignity and respect. We will define behaviours that demonstrate respect and share this information with staff that deliver our delegated services.
- Together with the staff that deliver services delegated to or commissioned by us, we will identify, commit to and carry out activities that help us meet community needs for dignity and respect, define behaviours that demonstrate respect and address the barriers caused by any unmet needs.
- East Lothian IJB will direct, enable and support the co-production of an East Lothian Charter that sets out how both staff working in delegated services/contracted organisations can expect to feel respected and how we can preserve the dignity of community members and the staff that interact with them through our delegated services.
- We will work East Lothian Council, NHS Lothian and other peers across the Lothians to support and achieve actions identified in similar plans.
- We will respond to any comments and feedback on the process with open minds. We will ‘listen to understand’. We will take interest in expressions or feelings of defensiveness we witness or notice in ourselves in response to someone else expressing their experience with dignity and respect.
- We will develop systems to address behaviours that do not meet the standards established in our Charter.
- We will ensure staff delivering our services are supported to behave with cultural sensitivity. This may mean training or sharing information gathered from the community.
Outcome 3: Anti-Racism
We will be an anti-racist organisation.
- Service users and staff feel supported and confident to report racism.
- Managers and team leaders feel equipped and confident to address reports of racism, harassment or unequal treatment.
How do we plan to achieve this?
- We will work with our third sector partners, community groups and the staff delivering our delegated services to understand more about whether they feel that have experienced racism, the sort of behaviours, comments or treatment they received and what would have improved their experience (either what happen to them or how the situation was managed).
- We will direct staff responsible for the commissioning and oversight of services to embed requirements to meet public sector race equality standards in tender documents and assessments (and our East Lothian Charter, when created), establish robust reporting mechanisms for racist incidents and address the resolution of incidents in a way acceptable to the public sector under applicable laws and duties.
- Staff will receive training specific to their roles and responsibilities that will enable them to improve their confidence in talking about, reporting and addressing racism in a health and social care setting.
- A communications campaign will be undertaken to offer information about the options staff working in our delegated services have for raising incidents of racism and what they can expect from the response.
- A communications campaign will be undertaken to offer information about options service users have for raising incidents of racism and what they can expect from the response.
Outcome 4: Enabling Independence
We will encourage and enable independence.
- We will work collaboratively across our organisation and with partners to support individuals to be more independent, to enable them to live more fulfilling lives.
For example, we will provide demonstrations of assistive technology to support individuals at home, we will provide travel training (building the ability and confidence to use public transport) and provide a rehabilitative approach to care to encourage individuals, where possible, to remain independent at home.
How do we plan to achieve this?
- We will support the transition of young people to adult services with careful policy, planning and commissioning that fosters independence e.g. travel training for young adults to assist them in learning the skills to navigate active travel and public transport effectively, staffed demonstration home showing the range of assistive technologies a person can access to remain independent in their home for longer at any age.
- Together with our third sector and community partners, we will identify how we can most meaningfully track progress towards supporting independence.
Outcome 5: Addressing Health Inequalities
We aim to reduce health inequalities by addressing their root causes.
- Our staff and community have a greater awareness of the role of poverty in unequal mental and physical health outcomes.
- Our services and those commissioned by us will be trauma-informed, stigma aware, simple to access and focussed on prevention / early intervention.
How do we plan to achieve this?
- We will work with East Lothian Council’s team responsible for the Poverty Plan and support them in their goals through our service planning and commissioning.
- We will embed training on poverty related inequalities in East Lothian HSCP Learning and Development.
- We will identify health inequality benchmarks via NHS Intelligence Team data and the East Lothian Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and decide upon targets for improving key health inequality metrics.
- We will work with Volunteer Centre East Lothian to explore the opportunities presented by the life challenges/personal coaching data mapping software they are trialling (Signal).
- We will launch our Single Point of Contact for Mental Health telephone service.
- We will collaborate with NHS Lothian and local partners to establish a forum on suicide prevention. The forum will join up different types of work being done to support mental health crises before they escalate.