Promoting Equality and Diversity in Healthcare: The Case of Supporting Anthony's Well-being

According to NHS 2018, equality is the aspect in which everyone is treated equality and provided with equal facilities and privileges, in terms of making a fairer society [NHS, 2018]. In health and social care context, every individual has right to get fair treatment, support and care from care providers irrespective of their caste, religion, race, ethnicity and physical or mental disability. Diversity is the process of valuing, recognizing and accepting the differences in people’s thought, activities, behaviours and approaches (Sharma, 2016). PHE, 2018 has mentioned in its report that, in UK there are many cases in which people are harassed and provided with lack of proper health care and social support due to the diversity in their behaviours and activities, which not only impact on their mental health but also pose adverse impact on their overall emotional, mental and spiritual health [PHE, 2018]. Equality and diversity are important to prevent discrimination and bias in society in relation to caste, religion, behavioural and learning disability, mental and physical disability, race and ethnicity. In the given case study, Anthony needs fair and positive environment in wider society as well as in his workplace in which he will be treated with dignity and respect. One of the most important supports that he needs is that acceptance of his homosexuality by the society. Equality will assist anthology to get equal rights, facilities and support in his workplace and wider society. On the other hand, diversity will assist society to respect and accept the diverse sexual behaviour of Anthony that will improve not only his mental health but also improve his self-esteem and self-confidence.

In context of equality and diversity vocabulary plays an important role in developing positive thoughts, bias free mentality and supportive environment in society that assist people with learning difficulties like Anthony to get proper social support from neighbours, friends and family members. As mentioned by Van den Bosch et al. (2020), words have enough power to reflect on the mentality, perception and behaviours of people. Through learning positive and right words, it is possible to develop creative thoughts and position behaviour in people that are important for changing their mentality toward people with learning disability and diverse behaviours. In case of Anthony, vocabulary can assist him in many different ways to get equality and diversity in the way he is treated by other people. Care workers can use diverse words, terms and synonyms that can not only improve the stock of words of Anthony but also assist him to develop proper ability to make fluent interaction with other people by using appropriate words. As stated by Mertkan et al. (2017), vocabulary sheet is generally used by the care staffs for people with learning disabilities in term of developing their knowledge about different terms and their usage. Vocabulary sheet can also be used by social care workers in their awareness campaigns against discrimination, gender bias and inequality in society in terms of making people aware of such words and term that are important for changing the attitude and behaviours toward sexual and behavioural diversity thereby instigating them to treat the disable and diverse people equally like the other normal people (Booysen et al. 2018). Vocabulary training is highly important for Anthony that will assist him to express his feelings, thoughts and decision in front of other people and make them understand his psychology and behaviours. On the other hand, through developing stock of words, Anthony can be able to interact with his colleagues and seniors at workplace smartly without facing any speech difficulties that will make him to grab his equal right, fair treatment and positive approaches from them. Additionality, through vocabulary training, it is possible to recover the learning difficulties of Anthony thereby enhancing his knowledge , decision making , reasoning and problem solving skill that are important to express his viewpoint in front of society so that society that can make positive transformation in the way society treat him.

While it comes to implement useful practices related to equality and diversity such as developing non-discriminatory environment and value as well as respect the diverse behaviours, approach, attitude and performance of people, it is important to assure that these practices would not interfere with the basic needs and fundamental rights of people (Poushter et al. 2019). In the given case study, Anthony needs positive support from his father, friends, colleagues, neighbour and society people. People in his workplace need to provide him with such as environment that is full of positive thoughts, respect, dignity, equal values and creativity. Instead of bullying him, his colleagues need to treat him equally as they treat other colleagues. His care workers need to conduct personality and vocabulary training at centre that will help him to develop his communication skill, interaction skill, decision making, problem solving and learning skill. Care workers need to work in partnership with Anthony’s father, his neighbours and his colleagues to represent a friendly, caring and supportive approach towards Anthony that will improve his self-confidence and self-esteem. On the other hand, the higher officials oo Anthony’s workplace need to provide equal working facilities and privileges to Anthony and will provide him with such as workplace environment in which he is free from any harassment, bully, discrimination, bias and sarcasm regarding his homosexuality.

There are many legislations regarding equality and diversity that needed to be implemented in right way in society. The Equality Act (2010) provide legal protection to people from any kind of bias and discrimination in their workplace as well as in wider society (Westwood, 2017). Under this act, Anthony has rights to be treated with proper dignity and respect in his workplace and would be provided with discrimination-free and fair work environment. One of the limitations of this act is that, it is all-time not possible to treat people equally with providing them equal facilities at the workplace as different people has diverse needs, ability and strength that can make differences in their designation, remuneration and facilities they get from the office (Waughray and Dhanda, 2016). In case of Anthony, as he has learning disability, he needs special care and attention from the senior official of his workplace rather than get equal approaches that the company use for other employees. Under Equal Pay Act 1970, Anthony would be paid the justified salary as per his designation and skill without facing any bias. Under the guidelines of Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Anthony should be protected from any kind of harassment, bullying and ill treatment at workplace and in wider society due to his homosexual behaviour. Under Employment Equality Regulation 2003, Anthony has the legal rights to get equal working facilities, respect and dignity from his peers, juniors and senior staffs. Disability Discrimination Act 1995, any discriminatory and bias acts at workplace and in society is strictly prohibited in case on Anthony in terms of providing him equal and fair opportunities irrespective of his learning disability. Drawback of all these legislations is that, if implemented in improper way, equality and diversity cannot be archived in wider society and workplace in every aspect. Therefore, it is important for car workers and society to implement these legislations into practice to provide equal value and support to needy person.

Reference list:

• Booysen, L.A., Bendl, R. and Pringle, J.K. eds., 2018. Handbook of research methods in diversity management, equality and inclusion at work. Edward Elgar Publishing.
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• van den Bosch, L.J., Segers, E. and Verhoeven, L., 2020. First and second language vocabulary affect early second language reading comprehension development. Journal of Research in Reading, 43(3), pp.290-308.
• Waughray, A. and Dhanda, M., 2016. Ensuring protection against caste discrimination in Britain: Should the Equality Act 2010 be extended?. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 16(2-3), pp.177-196.
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