Interpreting Department of Health Policy on Equality

It is an occupational hazard of organising speaking events that now and then one of your speakers will be suddenly and unexpectedly indisposed. When that happens you can either leave a gap -- or try and fill the breach yourself. This is a problem that arose in the third of our recent conference / workshops on the Gender Equality Duty in Health. At each event civil servants from the Department of Health had volunteered to come and deliver their version of a common presentation about their department's approach, and what it should mean. However, on our last day, one of them was prevented at the very last minute from attending. Fortunately I'm familiar with what was going to be said -- in part because I contribute regularly to two community stakeholder engagement groups, including an advisory group on Gender Equality. This meant I was able to step in at short notice and fill the gap -- although the emphasis is inevitably my own as a result. In the next episode we change tack again, with an in-depth interview with the Labour back bench MP Dr Lynne Jones. Lynne has lots to say about equality and diversity -- in and out of Parliament, so be sure you don't miss that episode, coming up soon.