NICE indicator process guide

5 Advancing equality and making social value judgements

NICE is committed to ensuring that the indicator development process fully meets duties under the Equality Act (2010) to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, foster good relations and advance equality of opportunity in relation to people who share the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation, including the public sector equality duty to tackle discrimination and provide equality of opportunity for all enables it to meet requirements under the Human Rights Act (1998).

NICE's equality scheme summarises NICE's legal and other equality obligations and describes NICE's approach to meeting them, particularly the process of equality and health inequality impact assessment. NICE uses this approach to consider not just equality in relation to groups sharing the characteristics protected by the Equality Act (2010) but also health inequalities arising from socioeconomic factors or associated with the shared circumstances, behaviours or conditions of particular groups (for example, looked-after children, people who are homeless, people who misuse drugs and people in prison).

Identifying such groups is an aspect of NICE's compliance with both general public law requirements to act fairly and reasonably, and human rights obligations.

Two aspects of NICE's process for developing indicators that are of particular relevance to equality issues are stakeholder involvement and equality and health inequality impact assessment.

NICE indicators, and the procedures NICE uses to develop them, also take account of the NICE principles.