Recommendation 3

HM Government Accepted

We agree with the committee that it is important to diversify NHS leadership, including maternity service leaders and educators. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different professional groups. We are committed to working with partners to ensure the plan meets its aims, and will engage independent experts to make sure it is ambitious, forward looking and evidence based. In September, we launched our formal call for evidence for the 10 Year Workforce Plan, to provide stakeholders with the opportunity to contribute directly to the plan’s development. The government asked to hear from anyone with relevant evidence, including trade unions, royal colleges, employers, charities and those with expertise by experience. NHS England has commissioned the NHS Employers’ Diversity in Health and Care Partners Programme, which has empowered over 375 organisations to tackle inequality in the workplace. This provides organisations with access to: • leading industry experts • good practice, guidance and resources • networking opportunities This will help them to develop the necessary equality capacity and capability at a systems level to specifically deliver the requirements of the NHS EDI improvement plan, 10 Year Health Plan for England and forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan. The national Perinatal Equity and Anti-Discrimination Programme, which all trusts are expected to complete by 2027, will also play an important role in supporting leadership diversification. A core aim of the programme is to help senior leaders understand the importance of inclusive leadership and the impact of diversity on: • decision making • service delivery • staff experience By embedding anti-racist and anti-discriminatory principles into leadership behaviours and organisational culture, the programme is expected to provoke reflection and action within trusts on how leadership opportunities are created and sustained. The long-term success and sustainability of the programme will be closely tied to the presence of diverse leadership at all levels, including within maternity and neonatal services. For the last 2 years, NHS England has funded cohorts of aspiring midwifery and neonatal leaders to undertake a bespoke Rosalind Franklin leadership development programme delivered through the NHS Leadership Academy. This bespoke programme is aimed at mid-level healthcare leaders aspiring to lead large and complex services, including those in maternity and neonatal. NHS England is also updating and relaunching an Inclusive Reciprocal Mentoring Programme, which will be open access for all systems and regions to be able to use as they see fit. Based on the established evidence base, it is hoped that this will help to increase diversity across senior leadership roles and help current senior leadership have greater insight into the delivery of care to diverse patient and service user groups. Additionally, the NHS supported over 90 ethnic minority midwives, neonatal nurses and their managers through the Elevate and White Allies at Work programmes. The latter was co-designed with London South Bank University and won the Exceptional Programme of the Year Award at the Ethnic Minorities into Leadership Awards 2024. There are local initiatives underway to improve the diversity of the maternity workforce leadership. For example, the CapitalMidwife Programme has been developed in response to the growing need to apply ‘once for London’ solutions to the challenges faced by over 6,000 midwives who make up the London midwifery workforce. Specifically, the programme formed an EDI advisory group made up of ethnic minority maternity leaders that designed and piloted the CapitalMidwife Anti-Racism Framework. The framework includes 9 initiatives, ranging from supporting ethnic minority staff into leadership roles through to debiasing people management processes. Trusts will receive accreditation and rewards for implementing the various initiatives on the framework.