Equality and diversity

Most of us need to visit a doctor or dentist from time to time, and may need hospital treatment on occasion. Others may rely on the NHS and social care services for help with long-term health conditions or disabilities. Whenever you need healthcare, medical treatment or social care, you have the right to be treated fairly and not to be discriminated against, regardless of your ‘protected characteristics'. You can see a list of protected characteristics below. The new law sets out that every patient should be treated as an individual and with respect and dignity.

The new law means that all NHS organisations will make sure health and social care services are fair and meet the needs of everyone, whatever their background or circumstances.

Within health and social care service provision, the ‘protected characteristics’ are currently:

• race
• sex
• gender reassignment status
• disability
• religion or belief
• sexual orientation
• marriage and civil partnership status
• pregnancy and maternity

For the first time the law also protects people who are at risk of discrimination by association or perception. This could include, for example, a carer who cares for a disabled person.

Health or social care services covered by the new law include:

• those providing support for people with mental health problems
• those supporting elderly and disabled people in their homes
• care in day centres, and residential and nursing homes
• those caring for children who cannot live with their parents

It doesn’t matter whether the service is provided by a public authority or an independent provider.

You also have rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (included in the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK), which are relevant to health and social care. These rights include:

• the right to life
• the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
• the right to liberty
• the right to respect for private and family life

Discrimination can be direct or indirect.

Direct discrimination is when one person receives less favourable treatment than another person because of a protected characteristic. For example, if a clinic refuses to offer fertility services to a lesbian couple because they are not heterosexual, this constitutes direct discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

Indirect discrimination is when there is a condition, rule, policy or practice that applies to everyone but which particularly disadvantages people who share a protected characteristic. For example, a social care provider that runs a day centre decides to apply a ‘no hats or other headgear’ rule to service users. If this rule is applied to every service user, then Sikhs, Jews, Muslims and Rastafarians who may cover their heads as part of their religion will not be allowed to use the drop-in centre. Unless the social care provider can objectively justify using the rule, this is indirect discrimination.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has developed guidance for users of health and social care.

Follow the links below to find out about health issues relevant to these groups:

• black health
• south Asian health
• gay and lesbian health
• trans health 
• living with a disability
• children with a learning disability
• pregnancy
• carers