Carers of older or disabled relatives will be protected from discrimination when the Equality Bill comes into force in autumn 2010.
The Bill, published in April, aims to make life fairer for several groups, including older people, disabled people and ethnic minorities. Many of the changes affect social care employers, including:
- putting a duty on public bodies to make sure their services are suited to everyone who uses them. Four consultation events to discuss this took place in early September
- asking public services to promote equality in their workforce
- allowing employers to choose to make their workforce more diverse when they have two equally suitable job candidates.
Age equality in health and social care services
In April this year, Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham asked Sir Ian Carruthers, Chief Executive of NHS South West, and Jan Ormondroyd, Chief Executive of Bristol City Council, to undertake a review of age discrimination and age equality in the provision of health and social care services.
The review was asked to look at what health and social care organisations should do to meet the ban on age discrimination and the new public sector equality duty in the Equality Bill, in order to ensure that people are not discriminated against because of their age when using services.
The review analysed evidence about the nature, extent and types of age discrimination in health and social care services. It also considered which of the reforms already under way will help to tackle age discrimination and support greater age equality.
The review published its report on 22 October, setting out its recommendations for actions to take. A government response will be consulted upon later in the year.
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