How to save the NHS - (NHS Fife & pronouns)

akkakk · 2025-02-18T10:16:22+00:00

A slightly different look at the current case against NHS Fife / Dr Upton by Sandie Peggie. In a report in The Telegraph it says: ^The NHS allowed a transgender doctor to use female changing rooms on the advice of an equalities officer rather than lawyers, it has emerged.^ ^An employment tribunal heard that NHS managers deferred to Isla Bumba, equality and human rights lead at NHS Fife, after nurse Sandie Peggie said she was uncomfortable sharing female facilities with Dr Beth Upton, who was born male but identifies as a woman.^ Apparently Isla Bumba ^was hired to the senior role after graduating in 2020 and then working for two years as a Covid contact tracer.^ It then goes on to say: ^Ms Bumba said her role was as a “support aid” to the NHS and ^*^dealt with issues such as “staff [who] are not sure what the correct pronouns for someone are”.^* ^She worked for NHS Grampian for two years as a Covid contact tracer before landing the NHS Fife role, which sees her ^*^paid between £48,788 and £56,747 per year.^* So - my radical idea... Print pieces of A4 to go around the trust buildings which say: If born a boy = man = he / his If born a girl = woman = she / hers remove Ms Bumba's role and instantly save £50,000 p/a there are 215 NHS trusts - each of which no doubt has a Ms Bumba should save nearly £11million p/a - soon it will add up to real money!

ANameChangePresents · 18/02/2025 15:00

Beowulfa · 18/02/2025 12:22

I feel it's unfair to personally criticise IB. She just applied for a job. The job's salary, remit and status is on the shitshow circus that is NHS Fife.

I'd like to think this could be an opportunity to look at what EDI roles COULD do if those in them were reminded that there are nine (9) protected characteristics under the 2010 EA, and that some of them are particularly pertinent in healthcare (thinking of the national scandal that is the maternity stats for black mothers).

No. Sorry. This shit show is a result of thousands of individuals making thousands of internally consistent decisions against the interests of the female sex class. Damn them to Hell and back. Save the infantilisation for infants. We all have the power to say 'no'.

RethinkingLife · 18/02/2025 14:28

As PPs indicate, as the minutes of various meetings show, IB had a key role in writing policy. Amongst her other roles, she's also the Lead for Equalities and Human Rights for Fife. Plus a co-chair of relevant committees.

Original poster

akkakk · 18/02/2025 13:48

Paddleboardsandironingboards · 18/02/2025 13:14

I think there's no need to turn this into an individual witch hunt. The NHS is institutionally captured, those at board level in every trust either know what's going on, or bloody well should. The responsibility is theirs to address this.

Agree - no need for a witch hunt, but that wasn't the purpose of this thread.
My slightly tongue-in-cheek original post was commenting on a role (just happens to be filled by IB) where she quotes her purpose including helping others such as when they are unsure about pronouns...

now as pronouns are one of the simplest parts of English grammar, my suggestion was to write it out on a piece of A4 and save the need for a £50k+ p/a job

The absurdity of the NHS is not just that people are hounding nurses like this, but that anyone would ever consider employing someone in a role where a part of the job is to help people understand pronouns...

If born a boy = man = he / his
If born a girl = woman = she / hers

It really is no more complex than that - it does not need someone being paid £50k+ p/a to help people understand it. If anyone believes / claims anything else then the adults in the room need to say to them...

now now dear - we all know that there are only boys and girls and you are what you were born, so your pronoun is...

and then get on with their job of running the NHS to help people who are sick.

OP posts:

CarefulN0w · 18/02/2025 13:45

@Merrymouse for me the exec responsibility should sit with a clinician, but it would be a practical solution for HR to do a lot of the doing, because of the need for training as well as staff functions.

I would be interested to hear of other solutions though. The main thing if meaningful improvements are to be achieved for all PC, is not to hive EDI off into its own department but to properly embed it across all appropriate functions.

To take safeguarding policies as an example, the exec lead needs to be responsible for ensuring that the policy content reflects the stated aims of the policy and is in line with actual, and not imagined, legislation. This individual would also be responsible for making sure that safeguarding considers the needs of patients and visitors with all protected characteristics equally.

Greenfencebrowntree · 18/02/2025 13:31

CocoapuffPuff · 18/02/2025 13:29

I suspect this poor lass will be left to face the music without support from higher up the food chain. She's advised them badly, but in line with how and what she's been taught. It's rotten all the way through, isn't it? So Sandie Peggie, Kate Searle (I think that's her name) and whoever EB is, as well as Isla Bumba have all been dropped in as sacrificial lambs. Spot the connection between all four of them? Yep - they're female. All thrown onto the blaze by NHS Fife for a man.

How on earth can we tell which is the man and which are the women....hmmmmmm

edited - wrong surname for IB!

Edited

She even consulted the Terence Higgins Trust on the policy... Probably speaking to her own equivalent there, another personable young woman wanting to be nice and tick all the boxes she's been taught to tick.

CocoapuffPuff · 18/02/2025 13:29

I suspect this poor lass will be left to face the music without support from higher up the food chain. She's advised them badly, but in line with how and what she's been taught. It's rotten all the way through, isn't it? So Sandie Peggie, Kate Searle (I think that's her name) and whoever EB is, as well as Isla Bumba have all been dropped in as sacrificial lambs. Spot the connection between all four of them? Yep - they're female. All thrown onto the blaze by NHS Fife for a man.

How on earth can we tell which is the man and which are the women....hmmmmmm

edited - wrong surname for IB!

Carriemac · 18/02/2025 13:22

The intranet to my Trusts EDI trans inclusive policy has mysteriously disappeared ...
Are the NHS waking up ?

Paddleboardsandironingboards · 18/02/2025 13:14

I think there's no need to turn this into an individual witch hunt. The NHS is institutionally captured, those at board level in every trust either know what's going on, or bloody well should. The responsibility is theirs to address this.

ArabellaScott · 18/02/2025 13:08

IB is very young, and agree with others, she's been put into a job she doesn't seem qualified to do.

Where does responsibility lie?

With the board?

With the Scottish Government - the Cab Sec for Health?

That would be Neil Gray.

https://www.gov.scot/about/who-runs-government/cabinet-and-ministers/cabinet-secretary-for-health-and-social-care/

ArabellaScott · 18/02/2025 13:06

Funnily enough, there is a vacancy on the NHS Fife board.

For a non-executive whistleblowing champion.

https://www.nhsfife.org/about-us/nhs-fife-board/team-members/nhs-fife-board/vacancy-non-executive-whistleblowing-champion/

Original poster

akkakk · 18/02/2025 13:02

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:57

And somebody who also had enough status to stand up to senior staff and the board.

However, that is also the kind of person I would imagine representing a union - and that hasn't gone very well.

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Those people are also found in copious quantities across the country - running businesses, they are mostly too sensible to go anywhere near working for the NHS.

I am a management consultant / have set up / run / advised on 100s of businesses around the world - my wife is a surgeon, I know too much about the NHS to ever work there...

OP posts:

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:57

Sortumn · 18/02/2025 12:47

The thing is this seems to have been seen as a fluffy job. Pronouns and sorting out translators for people. Lovely.

We could have really done with someone with an overview when my friend who is a wheelchair user was put on a ward where she was expected to take bowel preparation medication and no access to any accessible toilet. Anyone on the outside can see how ludicrous this is but on the inside of the hospital system no one seemed to have the ability to consider her needs let alone find a common sense solution.
This must be happening up and down the country.
I'm just about to read a report on maternity care, or lack of and autism.

We do need purely who aren't so snowed down with the day to day running that they can see when things can be made better and strep in when individuals are being failed. This needs someone with a lot more life experience and a great of real world problems thatt IB will have.

Edited

And somebody who also had enough status to stand up to senior staff and the board.

However, that is also the kind of person I would imagine representing a union - and that hasn't gone very well.

Sortumn · 18/02/2025 12:47

The thing is this seems to have been seen as a fluffy job. Pronouns and sorting out translators for people. Lovely.

We could have really done with someone with an overview when my friend who is a wheelchair user was put on a ward where she was expected to take bowel preparation medication and no access to any accessible toilet. Anyone on the outside can see how ludicrous this is but on the inside of the hospital system no one seemed to have the ability to consider her needs let alone find a common sense solution.
This must be happening up and down the country.
I'm just about to read a report on maternity care, or lack of and autism.

We do need purely who aren't so snowed down with the day to day running that they can see when things can be made better and strep in when individuals are being failed. This needs someone with a lot more life experience and a great of real world problems thatt IB will have.

CocoapuffPuff · 18/02/2025 12:39

I feel slightly sorry for Isla Bumba. Yes, she applied for the role, but she should never have been given it. We're told on the one hand that people under age 25 aren't fully developed so shouldn't face the full adult consequences for rape and other violent crimes, as they're impulsive and erratic. Yet they handed this mere child the huge responsibility that they did, without any external controls mitigating her age related impulsive and erratic behaviour.
Was she set up? Did nobody limit her actions? Did they all just sit back and watch an untrained and inexperienced bairn slap her keyboard and squeal "look at me, I werkin', I werkin', lookat meeeee" as she burned the entire place down?

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:39

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:28

Whether or not the role is carried out by one person, or split between departments, if you are checking whether specific groups are being missed by cancer screening services, or confirming that yes, staff do have a right to single sex changing rooms, that is EDI.

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Although, perhaps the problem is that Oncology are incentivised to measure cancer outcomes to prevent cancer, and the legal department is incentivised to provide correct advice to prevent costly claims, but the EDI department is incentivised to find just enough work to justify it's existence, but not so much that it costs the hospital more money...

RoyalCorgi · 18/02/2025 12:37

Apparently she was also engaged in finding interpreters for patients, which is a genuinely useful service, though I'm not convinced you need anything more than good admin skills to be able to do that.

chunkymarmalade · 18/02/2025 12:32

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/nhs-trusts-edi-staff-double-salary-junior-staff-pw2jlngj2

I like your A4 sheet idea, also maybe ´Follow the law (and don’t be a dick)´ on a handy pocket sized piece of card for people to carry with them might be cheaper than current recruitment drives…

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:28

HermioneWeasley · 18/02/2025 12:11

Why? Why is it a good use of taxpayer money to invest even more money in this completely unnecessary role?

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Whether or not the role is carried out by one person, or split between departments, if you are checking whether specific groups are being missed by cancer screening services, or confirming that yes, staff do have a right to single sex changing rooms, that is EDI.

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:23

akkakk · 18/02/2025 12:14

Apparently her role helps people understand pronouns - my post wasn’t get rid of her role but replace it with some A4 sheets of paper saying
If born a boy = man = he / his
If born a girl = woman = she / hers

sheets of A4 = cheaper than staff
I will even print them and donate them!

Show quote history

Oh I see!

Beowulfa · 18/02/2025 12:22

I feel it's unfair to personally criticise IB. She just applied for a job. The job's salary, remit and status is on the shitshow circus that is NHS Fife.

I'd like to think this could be an opportunity to look at what EDI roles COULD do if those in them were reminded that there are nine (9) protected characteristics under the 2010 EA, and that some of them are particularly pertinent in healthcare (thinking of the national scandal that is the maternity stats for black mothers).

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 12:20

CarefulN0w · 18/02/2025 11:41

I think I've seen that Executive responsibility for DEI at Fife sits under their Director of Nursing. To me that makes sense in Healthcare Organisations and locks in board level responsibility with a clinician. Where it has gone very wrong is that it got delegated to a recent graduate without real life experience or appropriate knowledge and skills.

What would I do?
I'd keep DEI a board level clinical responsibility and delegate actions to HR, removing the need for a single post focused only on EDI and making sure necessary actions are embedded across the organisation.

I'd make sure the EDI section of everyone's job description follows the law and deals with all protected characteristics, not just a single issue.

I would require the board to review single sex activity metrics every month and do a root cause analysis when SS provision has failed. Whether that be for patients and staff. A biological definition of sex naturally.

I would also require board monitoring of metrics for other PC, to drive the provision of ramps and other important improvements instead of rainbow events.

I'd also do more to raise awareness amongst staff of the challenges faced by people with other PCs and seek to make substantial improvements.

Importantly, I would also look at CQC and other regulatory bodies to ensure that they also follow the law when conducting assessments. In my view, organisations should get a requires improvement grade for the safe domain if they are unable to assure SS care environments.

Depressingly, given CQC's failure to implement a new single assessment framework - and they really cocked that up - they are now looking internally at their culture to make it kinder. As they are already captured, I am alarmed at where this could end up and would encourage biological realists to respond to consultations about it. (I probably need to start a new thread, to stop this one going too far off piste, but I'll do that another day).

I agree with a lot of this and am leaning towards ditching the IB role, but aren't HR's responsibilities limited because they don't deal with patients?

Are there any similar hospital roles that encompass staff and patients in the same way?

Original poster

akkakk · 18/02/2025 12:14

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 11:58

I say keep IB's role, but pay for training, qualifications and experience.

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Apparently her role helps people understand pronouns - my post wasn’t get rid of her role but replace it with some A4 sheets of paper saying
If born a boy = man = he / his
If born a girl = woman = she / hers

sheets of A4 = cheaper than staff
I will even print them and donate them!

OP posts:

HermioneWeasley · 18/02/2025 12:11

Merrymouse · 18/02/2025 11:58

I say keep IB's role, but pay for training, qualifications and experience.

Show quote history

Why? Why is it a good use of taxpayer money to invest even more money in this completely unnecessary role?

Greenfencebrowntree · 18/02/2025 12:08

A degree on epidemiology and a Masters in Global Health and Management... And they put her to work policing pronouns? They have wasted this young woman's education too.

ToBeOrNotToBee · 18/02/2025 11:59

Of course another issue is who on earth is hiring these bumbling idiots to such roles.
The whole hiring decision makers need going too.