Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that healthcare professionals are given training on ensuring that the needs of (a) minority and (b) LGBTQ+ groups are met in healthcare settings; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of creating a national regulatory body to (i) oversee training for those groups and (ii) ensure consistency of provision across the healthcare sector.

Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for all patients, and to deploy them in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their proximal populations. All National Health Service staff are required to undertake mandatory Equality, Diversity and Inclusion e-Learning upon taking up roles in the NHS, which is then refreshed once every three years. This training is produced at a national level to ensure consistency of understanding across all NHS staff.

There are no plans to assess the potential merits of creating a national regulatory body to oversee training and ensure consistency of provision in relation to minority and LGBTQ+ groups. Professional regulators are subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and other legislation which places on them a legal duty to ensure that those from minority groups are treated equally. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, which oversees the performance of the professional regulators, assesses their performance against its 18 standards of good regulation which includes standard 3 concerning equality, diversity and inclusion.