NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Programme: Equality Impact Assessment Results

1. Executive Summary

The NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Programme (the ‘Programme’) aims to increase NHS Scotland’s global health contribution by making it easier for all NHS staff to participate in global citizenship, both here in Scotland and overseas.

The Programme is overseen by a national Advisory Board comprising senior representatives from across NHS, Scottish Government, the Royal Medical Colleges and Academia and supported by the Scottish Global Health Co-ordination Unit, which sits within the Directorate of the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, in the Scottish Government.

Over recent years there have been significant shifts in the international development landscape, including a review of the Scottish Government’s approach to international development.

The learning from these changes and from the 5 years since the Programme was launched are brought together in ‘ NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Framework - Setting the direction for global citizenship in NHS Scotland’. The Framework sets out the values and principles that underpin the Programme, ensures alignment with wider policy priorities across Health and International Development and reflects updates to accepted good practice in global health.

The Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) for the Programme was updated as part of work to develop the Framework and consideration of equalities issues incorporated into engagement with stakeholders throughout the process. Additional data was gathered from a literature review, NHS workforce data and other sources.

The EQIA concluded that the Programme has a positive impact on those with protected characteristics, and that overall, there are no negative impacts on people with protected characteristics working within NHS Scotland.

The EQIA process also identified opportunities to promote different approaches to global citizenship participation such as virtual volunteering, to clarify the use of existing NHS HR Policies to support global citizenship participation and develop Learning and Development materials to increase awareness and understanding of ethical global citizenship practice. These will be included in the workplan to deliver the ‘future direction’ set out in the Framework.