NHS Lothian is committed to eliminating discrimination and improving equality of opportunity. This means improving the way we deliver our services and the way we employ our staff. We want to be at the level of Scotland’s best NHS Boards in our work to address health inequalities and as a welcoming, caring employer.

This means that we aim to:

• Make our services easier to access for our patients and their carers and families.
• Provide our patients with a better experience of our services, regardless of their age, disability, ethnicity, religion/belief, gender, or sexuality.
• Develop ways in which we involve people in decisions about our services, so that they include a wider range of views.
• Improve our employment policies and practices to attract, train, promote and support a workforce that more closely represents the huge variety of people who live and want to work in Lothian.

These pages contain a wide range of information about what we are doing in NHS Lothian to make these things happen. 

Impact assessments page
Key equality & diversity documents page
Consultations, involvement and contacts page

RoyalHospitalfor Sick Children is collaborating with a number of children's hospitals and child health institutions to promote the rights of children and young people. This group, the Taskforce on Health Promotion for Children and Adolescents in and by Hospitals and Health Services, is composed of members from Europe, North America and Australia. The Taskforce's first programme of action is to evaluate the level of compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the European Association for Children in Hospital (EACH) Charter. We present here the report on this first evaluation. For more details on this report or on the work of the Taskforce contact james.robinson@luht.scot.nhs.uk

NHS Lothian's new Equality & Human Rights Scheme sets out our plans to develop equality in our services and in the way we employ people. It can be viewed at our Human Rights section.