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Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking statement for 2024/25

The Trust is fully aware of our responsibilities towards patients, service users, employees and the local community and expects all suppliers to the Trust to adhere to the same ethical principles. The Trust is committed and will not tolerate modern slavery in any of its forms of slavery and servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking within our activities or our supply chains.

The Trust continues to fully support the government’s objective to eradicate modern slavery and human trafficking and we acknowledge our role in both combating it and supporting victims.The Trust is committed to ensuring our supply chains and our business activities are free from ethical and labour standards abuse.

Currently, all awarded suppliers sign up to our terms and conditions of contract which contain a provision around Good Industry Practice to ensure each supplier’s commitment to anti-slavery and human trafficking in their supply chains; and that they conduct their businesses in a manner that is consistent with the Trust’s stance on anti-slavery.

People

Human resources policies provide processes and procedures to ensure that our employees are treated fairly at all times; these include:

  • Confirming the identities of all new employees and their right to work legally in the UK
  • To have assurance from approved agencies that pre – employment clearance has been obtained for agency staff and to safeguard against human trafficking
  • All staff appointed are subject to references, immigration and identity checks, this is to ensure staff have the legal right to work in the UK
  • Adopting the national pay, terms and conditions of service, the Trust has the assurance that all staff will be treated, fairly and that pay, terms and conditions will comply with the latest legislation
  • The Trust has various employment policies and procedures in place designed to provide guidance and advice to staff and managers and also to comply with the relevant legislation. These are accessible on the intranet
  • The Freedom to Speak Up Guardian service exists to support employees in raising concerns, including about poor working practices
  • All staff are required to undertake mandatory training in relation to diversity and inclusion and safeguarding

Procurement

Our approach to procurement and our supply chain includes:

  • Ensuring that our suppliers are carefully selected through our robust supplier selection criteria/processes
  • Requiring that the main contractor provides details of its sub-contractor(s) to enable the Trust to check their credentials
  • Random requests that the main contractor provides details of its supply chain
  • Ensuring invitation to tender documents contain a clause on human rights issues
  • Ensuring invitation to tender documents also contain clauses giving the Trust the right to terminate a contract for failure to comply with labour laws
  • Using the standard Supplier Selection Questionnaire (SQ) that has been introduced (which includes a section on Modern Day Slavery)
  • Trust staff must contact and work with the Procurement department when looking to work with new suppliers so appropriate checks can be undertaken
  • Supplier adherence to our values: the Trust has zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking and thereby expect all our direct and indirect suppliers/contractors to follow suit
  • Where it is verified that a subcontractor has breached the child labour laws or human trafficking, then this subcontractor will be excluded in accordance with Regulation 57 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The Trust will require that the main contractor substitute a new subcontractor