Plain-English explanations of the technical terms and legislation used in this document.
- Access to Work
- A government scheme that can provide grants and practical support to help disabled people start or stay in work.
- Accessible Information Standard (DCB1605)
- A national standard requiring health and care providers to identify, record and meet the communication and information needs of people with a disability, impairment or sensory loss.
- British Sign Language (BSL)
- A visual language using hand shapes, facial expressions and body movement, used by many deaf people in the United Kingdom.
- Care Quality Commission (CQC)
- The independent regulator of health and social care services in England.
- Core Skills Training Framework
- A nationally agreed set of statutory and mandatory training subjects and standards used across health and care.
- Data Protection Act 2018
- The United Kingdom law that sits alongside the UK GDPR and governs how personal information must be handled.
- Direct discrimination
- Treating someone less favourably than another person because of a protected characteristic.
- Equality Act 2010
- The law protecting people from discrimination based on characteristics such as age, disability, sex or race.
- Equality Impact Assessment
- A structured check of how a policy, service or change might affect different groups, used to identify and reduce any unfair impact.
- Freedom to Speak Up Guardian
- A designated person who gives staff a confidential route to raise concerns about wrongdoing, risk or culture without fear of detriment.
- Fundamental standards
- The minimum standards of safety and quality below which care must never fall.
- Harassment
- Unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that violates a person's dignity or creates a hostile or degrading environment.
- Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014
- The regulations setting out the fundamental standards that providers of regulated health and care activities must meet.
- Human Rights Act 1998
- The law that gives effect in the United Kingdom to basic rights and freedoms, such as dignity, privacy and freedom from degrading treatment.
- Indirect discrimination
- Applying a rule or practice that looks neutral but unfairly disadvantages people who share a protected characteristic, unless it can be objectively justified.
- Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism
- A national training programme that ensures health and care staff have the right skills to support people with a learning disability and autistic people.
- Protected characteristics
- The nine grounds protected under the Equality Act 2010: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
- Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)
- The duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 to have due regard to eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations.
- Reasonable adjustment
- A change made to remove or reduce a disadvantage faced by a disabled person, such as a longer appointment or accessible-format correspondence.
- Regulated activity
- A type of care or treatment the law requires a provider to register with the regulator to deliver.
- Safeguarding
- Protecting people's health, wellbeing and rights and keeping them safe from abuse, harm or neglect.
- Single assessment framework
- The structure the regulator uses to judge a service, built around quality statements and five key questions (safe, effective, caring, responsive, well-led).
- SNOMED CT
- The standard clinical coding system used in electronic patient records so that information is recorded consistently.
- Special category data
- Sensitive personal information, such as data about health, race or sexual orientation, that the law requires to be handled with extra protection.
- Triage
- The process of assessing requests for care to decide how urgent they are and who should deal with them.
- UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
- The United Kingdom's main data-protection law governing how personal information is collected and used.
- Victimisation
- Treating someone badly because they have made or supported a complaint or grievance relating to the Equality Act 2010.
- Well-led
- One of the regulator's five key questions, looking at whether a service has good leadership, culture and management.