Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust continues to fully support the Government’s objectives to eradicate modern slavery and human trafficking and recognises the significant role the NHS has to play in both combatting it, and supporting victims. In particular, we are strongly committed to ensuring our supply chains and business activities are free from ethical and labour standards abuses. Steps taken to date are included below.
Our Staff
We confirm the identities of all new employees and their right to work in the United Kingdom, and pay all our employees in line with best practice and national guidance. Our Grievance Policy and Raising Concerns Policy additionally give a platform for our employees to raise concerns about poor working practices.
A Freedom to Speak Up Report is submitted to the Board of Directors on a 6-monthly basis which includes an overview of the number of concerns raised by staff and the category that they fall into.
Internal Policies
We have a number of complementary internal policies that support our commitment to eradicating Modern Slavery; these include:
- Freedom to Speak Up/Raising Concerns Policy
- Safeguarding People Policy
- Level 3 Refresher Training for Adults and Children – Contextual Safeguarding and Modern-Day Slavery.
- Recruitment Policy
Procurement and our supply chain
The Trust complies with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and uses the mandatory Crown Commercial Services (CCS) Standard Selection Questionnaire on procurements, which exceed the prescribed threshold. Bidders are required to confirm their compliance with the Modern Slavery Act.
Our procurement and contracting team is qualified and experienced in managing healthcare contracts and have receive appropriate briefing on the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which includes:
- requesting evidence of their plans and arrangements to prevent slavery in their activities and supply chain;
- using our routine contract management meetings with our providers, to address any issues around modern slavery;
- implementing any relevant clauses contained within the Standard NHS Contract; and
- Training and Awareness.
Patients and Service Users
Modern Slavery awareness is integrated into our safeguarding policies and training. Awareness is also raised through information sharing on the Trust intranet and on the public website. This is to ensure that our staff know how to raise concerns if they suspect modern slavery or human trafficking when interacting with patients or service users.
Review of effectiveness
The Trust reviews its Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement on an annual basis and presents it at the Board of Directors meeting in Public. This demonstrates a public commitment, ensures visibility and encourages reporting standards.
We continue to take further steps to identify, assess and monitor potential risk areas in terms of modern slavery and human trafficking, particularly in our supply chains.
In 2023/24, our anti-slavery programme will also work to:
- continue to support our staff to understand and respond to modern slavery and human trafficking, and the impact that each and every individual working in the NHS can have in keeping present and potential future victims of modern slavery and human trafficking safe through our Safeguarding team;
- continue to ensure that all our staff have access to formal training on modern slavery and human trafficking which will provide the latest information and the skills to deal with it; and
- work with our partners to ensure modern slavery and human trafficking are taken seriously and feature prominently in safeguarding agendas.
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and applies to Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust.
The Board approved this statement at its meeting on 17th May 2023.
Matthew Winn
Chief Executive