Our Organisation

Focus is a Community Interest Company, not-for-profit organisation that provides Social Work for adults who reside in North East Lincolnshire on behalf of the local Council. Based at Heritage House in the centre of Grimsby, Focus was established in 2013 and works in partnership with the Council and Integrated Care Board (ICB). Focus also collaborates with a wide range of social care and health providers in both the public and private sector to improve the quality and efficiency of local health and well-being services.

Our social workers provide advice and guidance, assess people’s needs, arrange for services to meet their eligible needs, periodically review each individual’s needs and adjust support plans and services accordingly.

Focus also provides a wide range of training courses to public and private health and care organisations in North East Lincolnshire to help improve the quality of services as well as to support compliance with relevant legislation, from Health and Safety to the Mental Capacity Act and Safeguarding.

Focus works closely with the Council to assess individuals with regard to any legally required financial contributions to their support costs. This also involves taking into account people’s additional needs due to disability or infirmity when agreeing contributions.

To protect those people who are unable to fully manage their finances Focus also provides a Corporate Appointee service to ensure individual’s rights are protected and that their best interests are fully considered.

Focus is rooted in the local community of North East Lincolnshire; employing 160 staff, working with local charities, other social enterprises, the Council and health organisations to help improve the well-being of local people whilst delivering an ethical and caring Social Work service.

Focus is a community interest company limited by guarantee. It has a board of governors made up of members of the community and employees, with an independent chair.

Meet our board >

Please tap/click the key links below to national and local guidance. If you are unsure, please call the Single Point of Access number at the top of the website:

• .gov Care and support statutory guidance
• SaferNEL
• .gov Making decisions: who decides when you can’t?

The North East Lincolnshire CCG is committed to ensuring equality and diversity is a priority when planning and commissioning health and social care services in our region. Focus has signed up to this priority.

Equality and Diversity is about making sure where necessary we have measures in place to support the nine protected groups to meet their individual needs (please see below for further details on these protected groups.)

Focus C.I.C is working hard to ensure not only that its services are appropriate and accessible for all members of our community but that no one is disadvantaged or discriminated against by the services we put in place.

Discrimination can be either:

Direct – when someone receives less favourable treatment because of a protected characteristic (please see below)

Or

Indirect – when a condition or rule, policy or practice disadvantages people who share a protected characteristic.

Equality and Diversity is about ensuring everyone is treated fairly and not discriminated against either in the planning or delivery of services.

As an organisation and as an employer, we aim to treat people as individuals in accordance with their personal needs.

In accordance with the general duty of compliance with the Equality Act 2010, our organisational objectives include:

• Elimination of all unlawful discrimination – including harassment and victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the act.
• Advancing equality of opportunity – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
• Fostering good relation – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.

The protected characteristics covered by the Equality Duty are:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender Reassignment
• Marriage & Civil partnerships (but only in respect of eliminating unlawful discrimination)
• Pregnancy & Maternity
• Race
• Religion & Beliefs (this includes ethnic or national origins, colour or nationality)
• Sex
• Sexual Orientation

In the North East Lincolnshire area, we are committed to publishing information that demonstrates our compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty.  The information published here includes, in particular:

Information relating to people who share relevant protected characteristics that are affected by our policies and practices and information relating to our employees.

focus C.I.C recognise that effective communication is an essential element of effective, quality care. In order to optimise health and care outcomes for all groups with protected characteristics we have created and consulted on the following specific objective for our commissioner and provider organisations:

We will ensure that all groups with individual communication needs will receive information and be supported to make meaningful decisions about their health and care through clear, appropriate and quality communication

This will include:

• Provision of information in languages and formats that are appropriate to the individual
• Support for verbal communication in the form of appropriate high-quality interpretation
• Timely facilitation of health and care consultations supported with relevant communication aids

We welcome the introduction of the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and see it as a useful tool to identify and reduce any disparities in experience and outcomes for NHS staff and job applicants of different ethnicities.  This is important work as research evidence shows that improving workforce race equality in the NHS will lead to better healthcare for everyone and better use of NHS resources.

North East Lincolnshire CCG has been working with local provider organisations and equality groups to ensure that WRES is implemented in a meaningful way including us here at Focus.

Focus contributes to the WRES report which describes any workforce inequalities linked to ethnicity in line with the WRES standards.

We have included actions related to the WRES in our local Equality and Diversity plan and we are planning to take part in a regional CCG WRES implementation group to fill any data gaps and to draw up an action plan describing interventions we will make to improve workforce race equality.

For further information please contact nicki.mekkaoui@nhs.net

Useful Resources

• Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual People’s Experiences & Expectations of Discrimination
• Guide for working with Trans People

Useful Links

• Equality Act (2010)
• Public Sector Equality Duty
• Focus Staff Structure