Equality, diversity and inclusion

Why?

We are committed to ensuring that our registrants can provide healthcare to all their service users. We already had EDI requirements in the SOPs and the standards of conduct, performance, and ethics, and with these changes we have strengthened our EDI commitment.

Specific standards:

Registrants must:

• 5: recognise the impact of culture, equality and diversity on practice and practise in a non-discriminatory and inclusive manner
• 5.1: respond appropriately to the needs of all different groups and individuals in practice, recognising this can be affected by difference of any kind including, but not limited to, protected characteristics, intersectional experiences and cultural differences
• 5.2: understand equality legislation and apply it to their practice
• 5.3: recognise the potential impact of their own values, beliefs and personal biases (which may be unconscious) on practice and take personal action to ensure all service users and carers are treated appropriately with respect and dignity
• 5.4: understand the duty to make reasonable adjustments in practice and be able to make and support reasonable adjustments in theirs and others’ practice
• 5.5: recognise the characteristics and consequences of barriers to inclusion, including for socially isolated groups
• 5.6: actively challenge these barriers, supporting the implementation of change wherever possible
• 5.7: recognise that regard to equality, diversity and inclusion needs to be embedded in the application of all HCPC standards, across all areas of practice
  
  

Expectations of registrants:

• Registrants are always expected to provide care to all their service users and ensure their specific needs are responded to
• Registrants should be able to identify when a service user’s care needs to be adjusted because they have a protected characteristic
• Instead of waiting for a service user to raise the need for accommodations, a registrant should be proactively thinking about how to make the care they offer as accessible as possible