A conference bringing together prominent speakers from healthcare, government and finance, to focus on representation and equality for women of the workforce across healthcare has heard calls for organisational and cultural change to address inequalities.

The Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (RCPE) and Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh (RCSEd) hosted a conference in Edinburgh on leadership and women in the healthcare workforce, with attendees from across the NHS.

Speakers at the event included Professor Dame Carrier MacEwen, Chair of the General Medical Council (GMC), Dame Sally Davies, previously Chief Medical Officer to Westminster, and Dr Mary Ann Ferreux, RCPE’s Chair for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Across many of the conference’s sessions, attendees heard about the importance of looking at the wider barriers and addressing the need for organisational change within the healthcare sector.

Many speakers examined the challenges faced by women and, especially people with intersecting identities.

In her presentation on widening participation in leadership in medicine, Dr Mary Ann Ferreux, Chair of the Royal College of Physicians’ EDI Committee explained:

“We know that the NHS employs about 1.3m people but the current leadership doesn’t reflect or represent the diversity of our patient population – or its workforce – in terms of gender, ethnicity and age.

“Women remain significantly underrepresented at senior leadership level, but women actually make up 78% of the NHS workforce.

“The number of BAME staff make up about a quarter of the NHS workforce and it’s even higher in terms of doctors, dentists and consultants at about 42% - however BAME board members across the NHS are only sitting at about 13.2% and with very senior management, only at 10%.

“Therefore those from ethnic minority backgrounds are overrepresented in the lowest paid categories and underrepresented at the top.”

Dr Ferreux added that beyond a lack of diverse role-models in leadership and management, the current poor representation of ethnic minorities and women has an effect on health and wellbeing. She explained that bias impacts care delivery and contributes to disparities in health outcomes, and there is a lack of problem-solving in the NHS due to group-think:

“Just imagine how our priorities, culture and ways of working in the NHS could be different if the leadership was representative of our workforce. Perhaps we’d actually have a greater understanding of our patients needs and their perspectives. We’d have greater diversity of staff perspectives. We’d have greater opportunity for innovation and problem-solving.

“What would it look like if we widened the pool of people who could work in leadership?”

Clare McNaught, the first women to be Vice President of RCSEd in its history, said the impressive speakers from across medicine and beyond will provide useful insights, adding:

“As the College’s first female VP in over the 517 years of the College history, creating greater opportunities for women in the healthcare profession is a subject close to my heart.”

Ms McNaught said that the two-day event will have “sparked honest conversations” about the challenges facing women in healthcare and how can improve and expand on leadership roles in healthcare.

Dr Kerri Baker, the RCPE’s Director of Education said the RCPE and RCSEd, on behalf of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, were “delighted” to deliver the two-day event which she said had  pulled together “wide-ranging and topical subjects”, including exploring barriers and solutions to women in leadership, and their health and wellbeing. She said that lessons from outside of medicine on how organisations can change to champion women in the workforce.

Read more: Briefing: Cabinet Secretary plans for health and care; Auditor General: Difficult choices for Scotland's NHS; Who are Scotland's new health and care ministers?; Analysis: Why people are left behind

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