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

[akkakk]

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!

And the astounding thing is Bumba wasn't even a gender studies graduate but apparently has a degree in epidemiology.

Apparently:
Ms Bumba then took a Masters degree in Global Health and Management.

So, that made her very qualified for a) legal questions and b) re-defining biology

Goodness, so much to pull apart here but essentially couldn’t agree with you more. £50k saved instantly!

I don’t think this kind of job is what Nye Bevan had in mind for a National Health Service when he created it.

No offence to Ms Bumba here, but the nhs would almost certainly be a better place without these roles.

There is no need for staff to advise on pronouns. This is a nonsense function.

Legal matters need to be referred to in-house lawyers. Which the nhs already has.

That is astounding. What age is she if she graduated in 2020? So, NHS Fife management basically deferred to a very young graduate with no experience in the law, no law degree or even any medical degree (although that's clearly not worth the paper it's printed on anyway if male doctors can declare themselves to be biologically female on a whim)?!

That is an absolutely enormous level of incompetence. Poor Sandie. She should have been backed up immediately and given her legal rights to single sex changing rooms without question. How has it got to this?

Exactly.

Presumably Isla advised that Dr Upton's wants take total priority. Because Stonewall 'advice' led her to think that, I guess?

With no actual legal input into this process at all. And no one so much as even listening to Sandie's point of view.

A total shit show.

I think we need to be careful not to be too negative about Isla Bumba and it is more about her post and those who put her in this position. I feel sorry for her getting this level of scrutiny.

I think NHS Fife are culpable not her.

It's arguably that taking advice from IB has cost NHS Fife hundreds of thousands of pounds in addition to her wage. That's even if they win. If they lose I think there may be other females who have been forced to change with men who might then have a case.

I don't know if that should all be laid at IB's door though. Underqualified and over confident but, I'm sure, very kind.

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).

More than £50k saved as they'd also save on pensions / national insurance etc.... :)

Not just NHS Fife. I have just been into a local GP surgery/clinic. Large poster up with picture of young man, slightly effeminate but not overtly. 'Alex found their safe space'. I looked at it and thought: right gender neutral name (but a female would perhaps spell it Alix?) and gender neutral pronouns. And this is meant to appeal to me how? Wished I had some dinosaur stickers.

It's not just the NHS - it's the unions too - and it's not just Scotland.

From the Fife NHS web page, training in the EDI department had been completely unbalanced for years, so this situation long predates IB's arrival.

I think change can only come from government, but assume they will attempt to procrastinate until forced to act by judgements received on this case/Darlington Nurses/For Women Scotland.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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?

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).

Oh I see!

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.

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…

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.

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...