Date of release: 28 March 2023
Dr Brian McKaig, Chief Medical Officer at RWT
As Chief Medical Officer of The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT), I want to make a positive contribution across as many areas of the organisation as possible.
In support of our Trust strategy, I have four key personal aspirations:
- Improving development opportunities for leadership positions across the medical workforce, in accordance with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) agenda
- Improving and increasing the academic standing of staff at RWT
- Improving RWT’s digital capability Enhancing our development programme for all senior medical staff
- Linking to the EDI agenda around development opportunities for leadership positions is the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) report.
This is a hugely important report which does not gain the attention it merits. The latest WRES is available here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/nhs-workforce-race-equality-standard-2022/ and through RWT’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Employees Voice Group (EVG) we intend to explore how RWT shapes up against the national picture.
The evidence shows there is a real bias against people from minority ethnic backgrounds within the NHS and I am keen to raise awareness of this and assure our staff that this is a live and pertinent issue, particularly given the population we serve and our workforce.
A total of 32 per cent of the whole workforce at RWT are from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (with 68 per cent of medical staff at RWT being from BAME backgrounds).
This compares to 41.9 per cent nationally. I am keen that we use this data to create meaningful change. Personally, this means RWT must ensure staff from any background who want to progress into leadership roles must have equal opportunities to develop and be trained for these positions.
Anton Emmanuel, Head of WRES, is a Gastroenterologist in London who I know on a professional basis.
Anton (pictured above) has written the Medical Workforce Race Equality Standards Action Plan: The First Five, identifying the key areas in tackling racism in the medical workforce, which can be viewed here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Medical-Workforce-Race-Equality-Standard-The-First-Five.pdf
Anton tweets: “The NHS workforce is 78 per cent women and 24 per cent Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic. Our executive is nowhere near that." We must address this and I fully endorse this stance.
Kind regards,
Brian
