The Equality Delivery System (EDS) is a national toolkit that supports us to provide better working practices and environments, free of discrimination.

It helps us understand how well we are responding to the equality issues that matter most to patients and staff. It also tracks our performance against national benchmarks.

The EDS helps local NHS organisations, in discussion with local partners, including local people, review and improve their performance for people with characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010. By using the EDS, NHS organisations can also be helped to deliver on the public sector Equality Duty (PSED).

In 2022, NHS England launched a new Equality Delivery System 2022 framework following a review of the existing EDS2 toolkit. EDS 2022 is designed for both NHS commissioners and NHS providers and places a heavier focus on partnership working between ICS system partners. 

Due to the complexities of establishing the organisation and its priorities during our first operational year, Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB has not been able to undertake a formal EDS 2022 grading exercise in 2022/23. This has been further complicated by the lack of required data to inform the exercise (e.g. staff survey data) and the decision taken by ICS provider Trusts to continue to use the EDS2 toolkit in 2022/23.

Instead, the ICB has placed a strong focus on developing its ICS Belonging Framework and Belonging Plan which has created the necessary forums and lines of accountability required to effectively work in partnership with ICS system partners to collaborate on EDS grading activities from 2023/24 onwards.

The ICB remains committed to using EDS frameworks to support consistent assessment of our performance against EDS domains and promote involvement of our diverse population and workforce across all aspects of our work.

NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board will undertake its first formal EDS grading exercise in 2023/24 and will support its system partners with the transition to the EDS 2022 framework. It is anticipated that system partners will work together to:

• Identify relevant services for assessment and use relevant data to identify strengths and weaknesses in patient access and experience
• Collaborate to engage and involve relevant stakeholders from diverse backgrounds in EDS grading activities
• Work together to review our grading processes and outcomes to ensure consistency in our approach across the system
• Co-produce materials and processes required to effectively implement EDS 2022 across the system

2023/24 EDS report

Our 2023/24 EDS report will be added to this page in due course, the report is currently going through the governance processes at the ICB. Once this is complete, the report will be added to this page.