Gather and use employee information A workforce equality monitoring report is published annually which highlights areas where improvements can be made to better acpture data. The use of employee information is detailed in the mainstreaming report. Publish a statement on equal pay The equal pay statement between men and women was published in April 2013. An equal pay statement including the protected characteristics of disability and race will be published in April 2017. Publish pay gap information Pay gap information was published in April 2013. Pay gap information will be included in the mainstreaming report and published in April 2015. Consider award criteria and conditions in relation to public procurement SAS will continue to ensure that all purchases are made in full compliance with Government Legislation and will utilise nationally agreed terms and conditions constructed by the NHS Scotland Central Legal Office for the purchase of all goods and services (or bespoke terms and conditions where appropriate) Publish in a manner that is accessible All reports will be published on the SAS website where adjustments can be made to the format. Copies can be provided on request in other formats. Appendix 3 Glossary A&E Accident and Emergency First Responder a trained volunteer working in local communities and able to provide immediate life support for a range of conditions Scheduled Care planned healthcare which operates on an appointment basis ACC Ambulance Control Centre responsible for triage of all 999 calls and dispatch of ambulances and co-ordination of the patient transport service NHS National Health Service SORT Special Operations Response Team responsible for response to major incidents and incidents requiring specialist equipment or training
The work undertaken by SAS has an impact on the workforce profile. For example the physical and stressful nature of the work carried out by Service staff makes working longer difficult, especially the physical demands of operational roles and this has an impact on the age profile.SAS unlike other NHS Boards does not have a varied range of alternative roles due to the specific nature of the job. As such this makes it difficult to compare the workforce profile directly with other NHS Health Boards. The Service is seeing an increase in the number of experienced staff with long service retiring at age 55. With the limited capture of equality data across the protected characteristics it is difficult to draw any meaningful analysis and as a consequence of this the potential to determine fairness in training, grievance, disciplinary, appraisals etc is compromised. Work is in progress to improve the disclosure of equality data and it is recognised that this will not change significantly in the short term however with sustained action improvements will be made. With the implementation of the Electronic Employee Support System (EESS) late 2014 / 2015 staff will be able to update and enter their own data electronically and it is anticipated that this will have a positive impact on the overall level of disclosure. Further details of the actions already taken and next steps can be seen at section 3. 3. Actions taken and new steps We said in our 2012/13 equality monitoring report that we would take a number of steps. This is what we did, what happened and what we plan to do next. In order to improve equality disclosure rates a plan is being developed to increase awareness of this and the importance of collecting the data. Reference to equality monitoring has been included in equality and diversity, equality impact assessment and protected characteristic specific training. The new EESS being introduced across NHS Scotland will have a self service element which is expected to improve rates of disclosure. However this will be introduced over a phased period and therefore there is a need to take steps to make improvements before then. Action Discussion has taken place during equality and diversity training to raise awareness of the importance of disclosing information Work is underway to update personal records for those who have recently joined the Service to ensure equality details captured at recruitment stage are transferred to their records