This strategy seeks to unify and harmonise various strands of SEL ICB’s ongoing work around equality, diversity and inclusion. It will strengthen our integrated and intersectional approach to all activities (see the SEL ICB definition of intersectionality, below) whilst retaining the unique attributes and barriers faced by different protected characteristic groups.
These are: age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, sex, sexual orientation, and religion and belief.
In addition, there are some Health Inclusion groups the ICB has selected to focus on: carers, socio-economic deprivation and digital inclusion.
The SEL ICB definition of intersectionality
A framework for conceptualising and identifying the multiple factors and social categories that simultaneously create our social identity. These intersecting, overlapping, interconnected social identities:
- Create our uniqueness and individuality
- Influence our values, beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices
- Drive our behaviours, relationships and interactions with others
- May be both empowering and oppressing, creating interdependent and overlapping systems of advantage and disadvantage, oppression, domination, and discrimination
Simply put, intersectionality is an acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination.
This strategy:
- Covers a three-year period from 2026–2029.
- Will operate across a period of significant transformation for the ICB in 2026/27. The roadmap of actions will be dynamic; focussing on supporting ICB transformation in 2026/27 and broadening in years 2 and 3.
- Is a workforce-first strategy, delivering a roadmap of actions to meet the needs of our diverse workforce. However, we recognise the importance and impact a representative and inclusive workforce has on our core planning and commissioning functions. As part of our strategy, we will consider how we develop our workforce to better understand the needs of our population and better engage meaningfully with the diverse communities across SEL.
Read the sections of the strategy below
