Beliefs and Religion
This Resource Guide provides a brief outline on legislation and best practice with reference to religion and beliefs1.
The Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 (as amended), the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 and the Equality Act 2006 are the main pieces of legislation in this area.
For the purposes of this guide, religion or belief is defined as ‘any religion, religious belief, or similar philosophical belief’. This excludes ‘any philosophical or political belief unless that belief is similar to a religious belief2’.
In determining what factors a court or tribunal might consider indicative of a religion or a belief under the terms of the legislation, the following are included:
- collective worship
- clear structure and belief system, or
- profound belief affecting way of life, or world view.
The legislation makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religion or belief when providing goods, facilities and services.
The legislation also makes it unlawful to discriminate in relation to employment and training on the grounds of religion or belief and provides protection against discrimination and harassment:
- during recruitment and selection
- in relation to terms of employment
- in relation to access to training, promotion, transfer or other employee benefits.
Harassment can occur if:
- a person’s dignity is violated
- an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment is created.
Discrimination may occur because of a perception of a person's religion or beliefs, even if those perceptions were wrong, and also extends to discrimination based on a person's association with someone else who has a particular religion or belief.
Recruitment advertisements should be accessible to the widest audience such that people from all religions would be likely to see the job adverts. If there are unnecessary criteria that would prevent people from certain religions from applying (for example, having to socialise with alcohol, or work inflexible hours that prevent praying), then these are discriminatory and should be removed.
An individual’s diet and corresponding religious requirements such as veganism should be allowed for when food is provided at work. (It would in any case be good practice to ensure that this is part of any service provision).
Most religions have special festivals, which can normally be accommodated using annual leave. People from any one religion should not have better employment terms and conditions than anyone else, but a provision for unpaid leave could be included to facilitate attending festivals. Some workers may need to pray at certain times and should be able to work flexibly to accommodate this, and employers may establish a prayer room in the workplace for this purpose.
Where a religion requires certain items of dress or jewellery, this should be allowed unless it contravenes health and safety requirements, or if there is a genuine occupational requirement for not doing so.
The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 introduces a criminal offence of stirring up racial hatred against a person on racial or religious grounds. If found guilty of the offence, the punishment can include a fine or even a prison sentence of up to seven years.
Public authorities in Northern Ireland must promote good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group (s. 75 Northern Ireland Act 1998).
Practical tips and information
Examples of practical service actions include:
- The provision of a non-denominational quiet room for prayer or contemplation.
- Written information about access to religious and spiritual support translated into community languages.
- Provision in maternity services for staff to cater for religious requirements and ceremonies relating to childbirth.
- Privacy and space for families to spend time together or to perform religious ceremonies should be allowed.
- Religious items, including religious and wedding jewellery to be treated with respect and not removed without the consent of the patient or their next of kin.
- Staff awareness of festivals, celebrations and holy days as these may affect procedures such as discharge.
- Accessible list of religious leaders to be contacted on request or as part of the care of terminally ill or dying patients.
- In the event of a death, consultation with the patient’s relatives or carers regarding their preferences in relation to the preparation of the body and other religious requirements3.
The following web sites provide information on a range of clinical and related issues on faith, beliefs and religion.
Key Web Links
General issues
Intute: health and life sciences: OMNI is a gateway to evaluated internet resources in health and medicine. This site lists a number of articles on the role of religion and spirituality in clinical care available to download, including ‘Drug intake during Ramadan4’.
The BBC website provides an ‘A-Z of religions and beliefs’.
Harpweb is a Department of Health (England) sponsored site and has links to web sites on Jewish Faith, Islamic Faith, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity and Shona beliefs and covers death customs and beliefs across different religions.
The Hospital Chaplaincy Gateway (UK) provides information on organisations and departments, including the British Humanist Association, and covers Scotland, England and Wales.
Circumcision
Circumcision Information and Resources Pages has a section on cultural and religious issues5.
Culturally sensitive medicines
The Muslim Council of Britain website regularly includes information on medicines and events relating to medicines, try putting medicine in the search box.
Jehovah’s Witnesses
See the Code of Practice for The Surgical Management of Jehovah’s Witnesses (2002) on the Royal College of Surgeons of England website.
View the Association of Anaesthetists' website to access the Management of Anaesthesia for Jehovah’s Witnesses (2005) (pdf).
Organ and tissue donation
The UK Transplant website provides information such as :
- organ donation and the Afro-Caribbean Community
- organ donation and the South Asian community, with leaflets in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu
- organ donation and Christian beliefs
- organ donation and Buddhist beliefs
- organ donation and Sikh beliefs (organ donation and Islamic beliefs
- organ donation and Jewish beliefs
- organ donation and Hindu Dharma beliefs.
Please note the downloadable (PDF) leaflets on this site have been translated into appropriate minority ethnic languages, and there is also a Welsh version.
Viewing the resource guides
Return to the list of resource guides.
Footnotes
- Often referred to as ‘faith’. (return to paragraph containing footnote 1)
- Reg. 2(1) Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. (return to paragraph containing footnote 2)
- Race Equality in Health and Social Care: a good practice guide (DHSSPSNI, 2003), p45. (return to paragraph containing footnote 3)
- Subscription only site. (return to paragraph containing footnote 4)
- The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 repeals and re-enacts the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. It makes it an offence for UK nationals or permanent UK residents to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) abroad, or to aid, abet, counsel or procure the carrying out of FGM abroad, even in countries where the practice is legal. The Act also increases the maximum penalty from 5 to 14 years imprisonment. (return to paragraph containing footnote 5)