- Conference
- 2006 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 30 December 2005
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the Public Sector duties on gender will come into force in April 2007 as part of the wider Equalities legislation. The Gender Equality Duty will require service providers and public sector employers to design employment and services with the different needs of women and men in mind. As the largest employer of women in the UK, this will be a significant piece of work for the NHS.
Conference believes that although NHS employers will have the right to set their own gender equality goals there will need to be considerable guidance from the Department of Health and specialist organisations such as the EOC.
Conference believes that NHS boards will have to address questions relating to how they deliver services to both women and men to make sure that the needs of both genders are being met. This will undoubtedly have implications on the way that services are delivered and the roles of members employed within the NHS.
Therefore Conference calls on the SGE to work with the National Women’s committee to provide a briefing for healthcare branches on the public sector duty on gender covering examples of best practice in time for the duty coming into effect in April 2007.