Accessibility and inclusivity

Accessibility and inclusivity mean making sure our information and services can be used by as many people as possible.

This includes people of all abilities, backgrounds, and circumstances.

We are committed to improving all our services with accessibility and inclusivity in mind.

How we make our services accessible

We are working hard to make sure that our services are accessible to everyone.

This includes using plain language when communicating with people who use our services.

All of our buildings are easy to access, for example, they are wheelchair accessible.

Our National Social Inclusion Office (NSIO) and Regional Social Inclusion teams work to make sure that people in under served groups and communities have an equal level of access to health services.

Social inclusion provides support and services to:

• people who use drugs
• people who use alcohol
• people experiencing homelessness
• refugees, applicants seeking protection
• Travellers
• Roma community
• LGBTQI+ community (those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, another sexual orientation or gender identity)
• victims and survivors of domestic, sexual or gender-based violence

The NSIO governance groups include:

• National Addiction Advisory Governance Group (NAGG)
• Homeless Advisory Governance Group (HAGG)
• Migrant Health Governance Group (MHGG)
• Roma Health Network (RHN)
• LGBTQI+ sub-group
• Domestic Sexual and Gender Based Violence sub-group

Contact

You can contact the team by emailing socialinclusion@hse.ie

Being an inclusive employer

We aim to develop our workforce so that it reflects the diversity of the people who use the HSE’s services.

We are an equal opportunities' employer.

This means we commit to treating our employees equally across recruitment, pay, conditions, training, work experience and career progression regardless of:

• age
• civil status
• disability
• ethnicity and race
• family status
• gender
• membership of the Traveller community
• religion
• sexuality

Training and advising staff - the DEI Team

The HSE’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) team is dedicated to helping managers and staff to provide an inclusive service through training.

HSE staff can find out more about training on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in the workplace on HSeLanD and the DEI team can be contacted with any queries or concerns at: diversity.HR@hse.ie

There is more information about our priorities to improve the way the HSE recruits, plans and develops its workforce in our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) Strategy 2022 to 2024.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility as a content publisher

Our National Guidelines on Accessible Health and Social Care Services explains how we would like services to provide information to people.

It is important that information is easy to understand and is accessible to everyone.

The EU directive on accessibility requires that all public bodies provide an accessible website. We know that some parts of this website are not fully accessible. This is something that we are working to improve every day.

A team has been put together to improve accessibility across hse.ie, and they are fixing content that doesn't meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

You can contact the team by emailing digital@hse.ie if you:

• need information in a different format
• find an accessibility problem that isn’t listed here
• want a copy of a PDF document in an alternative format