People from both groups badly underrepresented in senior positions, report reveals
The NHS has been accused of failing to utilise the talents of both female workers and those with ethnic minority backgrounds at a senior level.
Just 2 per cent of NHS trusts are chaired by people with a black and minority ethnic (BME) background and women make up just 28 per cent of trust chairs, according to a new report.
The Action not words – Making NHS boards more representative report, which is based on data from around 1,450 board members at 114 trusts, found that while 80 per cent of NHS staff are women, female trust chairs are outnumbered almost three to one by their male counterparts.
People with a BME background make up just 4 per cent of the executive directors and 7 per cent of non-executive directors on trust boards, and, while around half (47 per cent) of the trusts’ executive directors are female, women comprise just 38 per cent of the non-executive roles on boards.
The NHS has launched a two-year drive to rectify this issue and, last year, NHS England appointed two senior staff to boost BME representation. However, the report stated: “Good intentions and platitudes are not sufficient. There is a clear need for the government to step in and insist that NHS trust boards undertake a radical transformation to reflect the communities they serve.”
Philip Hunt, the Labour shadow health minister in the House of Lords, and former chair of the Heart of England hospital trust in Birmingham, has called the lack of diversity in the NHS’s hiring practices “disgraceful”. He said: “The lack of women chairs is bad enough, but the BME proportions are disgraceful. The barriers for people with a BME background in getting top executive positions have been well-documented and there is little sign of much progress.”
The NHS recognises that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. In June this year, it published the first NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard report, which gave feedback to every hospital and trust across the NHS about the experiences of their BME staff.
In a separate development, concerns were reported today that whistleblowers are being blacklisted by NHS. The Telegraphfound that, despite being cleared by employment tribunals or receiving formal apologies for their treatment, NHS whistleblowers' staff records continue to say that they were 'dismissed' from their previous job.
The Department of Health has now been accused of breaching data protection and employment laws by refusing to amend incorrect records that are preventing doctors and nurses who exposed care scandals from returning to work.
Staff records were being used to blacklist whistleblowers, a former NHS human resources director told the Telegraph. She said that anyone whose record states they have been dismissed from a previous role “would find it very hard to get work”.
“As an HR director, you think ‘I need to know what the risk is’. If there are disciplinary issues or dismissal, then it suggests there is a risk for that candidate,” she said. “If there is a second candidate who is good, you would go for another candidate.”
A group of four NHS whistleblowers, who all obtained their staff records through subject access requests, are now in talks with lawyers about taking possible legal action over the issue.
Jahad Rahman, a partner at Rahman Lowe Solicitors and specialist in employment law, said that employers do not have to give references but, if they do, they are legally obliged to give accurate statements. “If the record is inaccurate, that is potentially a breach of employment law,” he said.
He added that numerous staff records that incorrectly state ‘dismissal’ for whistleblowers “indicates that there is an internal policy, whether written or not, to disadvantage those who complain about wrongdoing within the NHS”.