Women are substantially underrepresented in senior positions across the NHS, despite accounting for 75 per cent of the health service’s workforce, a report has found.
Just one in four chief financial officers for NHS trusts is a woman, and just over a quarter of medical directors. The lowest proportion of women in board-level positions was at ambulance trusts, at just 39 per cent.
Health professionals hit out at the report’s findings — arguing it was critical for NHS leaders to be representative of the population it looks after.
Researchers at the NHS Confederation, the membership body for organisations that provide NHS services, found women would have to be in an extra 150 executive and non-executive directorships to reach the European Commission’s definition of gender balance of 40 to
