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. 

2024/25 marks the first time that EDS Domain 1 has been successfully completed as a collaborative assessment with NHS Provider Trusts with relevant evidence provided by the ICB via the Local Maternity and Neonatal Service. Provider Trusts who participated were:

• East Lancashire Hospitals Trust (ELHT)
• University Hospitals Morecambe Bay Trust (UHMBT)
• Blackpool Teaching Hospitals (BTH)
• Lancashire Teaching Hospitals (LTH)

Lancashire and South Cumbria Foundation Trust (LSCFT) were not in a position to contribute to this year’s assessment due to internal pressures and capacity issues. 

A system working group was established and attended by a range of EDI and Public Health colleagues from across LSC.  Regular meetings took place to plan the systems approach for the achievement of EDS Domain 1. Through the working group, a decision was made for the acute Provider Trusts to assess maternity services due to this being identified as an area requiring national improvement.

EDS Domain 2 and EDS Domain 3 were completed at organisation level. Evidence relating to both Domains were collected from staff within LSC ICB and LSC ICB intranet.

This is the second year that the ICB has assessed against the new EDS 2022 Domains 2 & 3. All LSC ICB employees were invited to a grading event on Tuesday 04 March 2025 which was attended by 8 employees. Evidence packs were circulated to LSC ICB colleagues prior to the grading event, the evidence packs provided in addition to colleague’s own experiences of working in the ICB would inform their grading.