Reports and Statutory requirements by NHS Organisations in Wales

Reporting on progress of the organisations equality objectives and compliance to the Equality Duty.

This report should be published on your organisations public website annually by 31^st March for the reporting year previous.

This can be written by a team on behalf of the whole organisation.

For further guidance:

Public Sector Equality Duty: guidance for public authorities – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

A listed authority must publish equality objectives that help it to perform the general duty. Equality objectives must be designed to lead to better performance of the general duty and bring about positive change.

The objectives should also be capable of being measured objectively in order to determine whether or not they have been, and are being, fulfilled. This interlinks with the duty to report annually on the progress that the listed authority has made in order to fulfil its equality objectives and the effectiveness of steps taken to fulfil those equality objectives.

Public Sector Equality Duty: guidance for public authorities – GOV.UK

Technical guidance on the Public Sector Equality Duty: Wales | EHRC

Since 2011, public sector bodies in Wales have been required to publish their gender pay gap and record which steps they are taking to address it.

This report should be published on your organisations public website by 31^st March every year and also uploaded to the Welsh Government portal. Link: Report your gender pay gap data – GOV.UK

Further information is available at:

Gender pay gap reporting: guidance for employers – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)​

WRES requirements were introduced during 2023/2024 to support actions within the Anti racist Action Plan for Wales. This provides consistency in reporting employment data and experiences of staff across NHS organisations in Wales.

This report should be published on your organisations public website and also uploaded to the Welsh Government portal.

Further information is available at:

Workforce Race Equality Standard – NHS Wales​ 

There is currently no statutory requirement within the Equality Act to have an Equality Policy, however the Code of Practice section 3.15 for the Mental Health Act states that an equality and human rights policy should be in place. The Code of Practice states:

Commissioners and providers should have in place a human rights and equality policy for service provision and practice in relation to the Act, which should be reviewed at Board (or equivalent) level at least annually.  As a minimum the human rights and equality policy should:

• set out how the organisation complies with applicable human rights and equality legislation (and in relation to commissioners, the health inequalities legislation)
• ensure that there is robust monitoring of equalities so that the organisation can better understand how people with protected characteristics are affected by the Act. Information gathered should be made publicly available in a clear and transparent manner. Details of any action that will be taken in light of the information collected should also be made available. Consideration should be given to whether other bodies can assist in any action that is required
• set out how the organisation will review the environment and culture of wards and the hospital to ensure the organisation is providing therapeutic environments and patients are treated with dignity and respect, involved in discussions about their care and treatment and their culture and ethnicity are respected
• set out how the organisation will obtain qualitative evidence on patients’ experiences and how it will ensure that the information is gathered at an appropriate time. This could include feedback on a patient’s involvement in care planning and on their relationships with staff and other patients
• describe consideration given of the need for reasonable adjustments, and
• set out how staff will be provided with learning, development and training on human rights legislation and the Equality Act

Mental Health Act Code of Practice.