The career prospects of women doctors would be significantly improved by better access to part-time training and child care, a report claims.
The report, called Women Doctors: Making a Difference, identifies the barriers preventing female doctors from reaching senior positions and sets out how to address them.
To improve access to part-time working, it urges deaneries to maintain a list of doctors wishing to train part-time in slot share arrangements, and for strategic health authorities to drop quotas and base provision on needs assessment.
And, controversially, it calls for the development of credentialing - or training modules - to be speeded up.
To improve childcare provision, the report calls for all trusts to appoint childcare coordinators to improve the information and options available to doctors.
Another factor highlighted is the lack of mentoring and career advice for female doctors. A programmed activity should potentially be made available within the consultant contract for senior doctors to provide mentoring and counselling, it recommends.
The report, by the CMO’s National Working Group on Women in Medicine, also calls for a clear set of standards and assessment processes for revalidating women who have taken time out of training or the profession. It also urges more women to apply for Clinical Excellence Awards.
Baroness Deech, chair of the working group, said that with more women entering the profession than men it was time to look at the “obstacles to the full exercise of every doctor’s potential”.
She said: “Our report focuses very much on the implementation of change. In order to achieve continuity of patient care and the best use of every doctor, the reforms must be tackled.”
Commenting on the report, chair of the BMA’s equal opportunities committee, Professor Bhupinder Sandhu, said: “We’ve come a long way in the last decade and that is extremely positive but our journey is by no means over.
“Women doctors are still often left behind and this is apparent in academia, surgery and leadership roles. Young female doctors need role models so that they can see that it is possible to be a successful doctor and have a family.
“While the report makes specific recommendations, there also needs to be a change of attitude and culture to enable female doctors to reach their full potential in medicine. This change of attitude is important among female and male doctors.”
CMO Sir Liam Donaldson expressed support for the report’s recommendations and said the Department of Health would consider each of them. He identified a shortage of women in leadership roles in the profession in his 2006 annual report and set up the working group.
Professor Jane Dacre, chair of the Royal College of Physicians’ women and medicine working group, said: “Women should be encouraged to take on leadership roles and medical workforce planning must be responsive to the greater proportion of female doctors coming into the profession and their preferences for different styles of working.”
Read the full report.
Read our feature: Will women have what it takes to lead the profession?
Read more on credentialing.
Tags: Equality, Leadership
