Preserves Dignity Archives - Antony Simpson is an Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.

The Equality Act (2010) Explained

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The Equality Act (2010) is a UK law that is intended to protect people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

This is to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

The Equality Act (2010) is about ensuring equality and fair treatment for all.

Before the Equality Act (2010) there were more than 100 pieces of other legislation that included details around protecting people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

The Equality Act (2010) starts by outlining the 9 protected characteristics:

Sex
Race
Disability
Sexual Orientation
Gender Re-Assignment
Religion or Belief
Marriage or Civil Partnership
Pregnancy and Maternity
Age

Next the act goes on to define what is prohibited, including:

Direct discrimination of anybody with a protected characteristic.
Indirect discrimination of anybody with a protected characteristic.
Harassment of anybody with a protected characteristic.
Victimisation of anybody with a protected characteristic.

Equality Act (2010) applies to all public organisations, all private organisations and all third sector organisations, making it all encompassing.

It covers accessing or buying services, buying of products, all education establishments, the NHS, Social Care (plus all other local authority services), employment (all aspects) and pensions.

It places a responsibility on all organisations to make reasonable adjustments for anybody with a protected characteristic and outlines the potential legal consequences for not adhering to this legislation.

I am choosing to write about the Equality Act (2010) now because a certain right-wing political party is planning to abolish this Act and the legal protections it provides if the party gets into power. Scarily, this political party appears to be getting increasingly popular with every day that passes. It is looking like this political party might get into power at the next general election.

So I thought I would use this platform to explain what the Act offers and hopefully help people realise why it is important for every one. Regardless of whether you have a protected characteristic or not.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also like my post The Human Rights Act (1998) Explained.

Write soon,

Antony

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Mind Map: What Makes A Good Nurse?

Thursday 28 April 2016 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutesIn my day job, I’m a Nurse. I had an experience recently that made me ask the question: What makes a Good Nurse?

I started with a mind map of my ideas (click on the Image for Full Size Image):

Despite the size of the mind map, there were loads of other qualities, talents and skills that I simply couldn’t fit on the mind map. These include:

A Sense of Humour
Patience
A Holistic Approach to care.
An understanding of and interest in Biology (Anatomy & Physiology), Sociology & Psychology.
Basic Life Support – Skills in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR).
An understanding of public health and health promotion.
An understanding of key issues: addiction, smoking cessation, mental health and obesity.
Knowledge of both hospital and community services including: what services offer, how they operate and how patient’s can access them.
Works Well in a Team.
Has Leadership Skills.
Aware of legislation relevant to patient care, safeguarding and other legislation related to their field of practice.
Has three goals: to prevent patients from getting sick/unwell, to make sick patients well again, and to keep patients as well & healthy as possible.

A Good Nurse needs to have so many qualities, talents and skills. No one person will have everyone of the qualities, talents and skills listed here. But I’ve worked with some fabulous Nurses that have come pretty close.

Nurses work in teams, which is where skill mix comes into play. Having a team of Nurses with a good mix of qualities, talents and skills means excellent patient care. This is because most, if not all of these qualities, talents and skills are met by the Nursing team as a whole.

Is there a quality, talent or skill you think a Good Nurse needs to have that isn’t on the mind map or list above? If so, please leave a comment below.

Write soon,

Antony

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