Gender Pay Gap Report published on International Women's Day

Staff at Oxford University Hospitals celebrated International Women's Day today (Friday 8 March 2019) by holding a special OUH Women's Network event.

Trust Medical Director, Professor Meghana Pandit, opened the event which included a confidence-building workshop by Unison and a talk by entrepreneur and motivational speaker Shamin Durrani, who shared her experiences as a woman working in the male-dominated construction sector.

The OUH Women's Network provides a monthly opportunity for staff across the Trust to meet together to discuss issues that disproportionately affect women. Each month's event covers a different topic and enables staff to contribute to the development of the Trust's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Oxford University Hospitals' second annual Gender Pay Gap Report will be discussed at the Trust Board meeting next Wednesday 13 March 2019 - it has been published on our website today.

Government legislation requires all UK public sector organisations and private sector companies which employ 250 or more staff to publish gender pay information annually.

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women in an organisation. It is not the same as equal pay which relates to men and women being paid equally for equal work, a legal requirement in the UK and a principle to which OUH is committed and conforms.

OUH's second annual Gender Pay Gap Report shows that the organisation has a significant gender pay gap because a higher proportion of men are in senior management and medical consultant posts while a higher proportion of women are in nursing, administrative and other jobs which tend to be lower paid.

This is exacerbated by bonus pay, largely driven by additional payments to medical consultants through the national Clinical Excellence Awards scheme - monetary awards for medical staff who perform over and above the standard expected for their role. As a higher proportion of consultants are men, this creates a larger gender pay gap.

Dame Fiona Caldicott (pictured), Chairman of OUH and a role model for women in the NHS as the first female President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, says: "I very much welcome the introduction of gender pay gap reporting because transparency drives change.

"This situation is not unique to OUH but I and my colleagues on the Trust Board are determined to take the action required to achieve change in this.

"We have taken actions since the Trust's first Gender Pay Gap Report was published in March 2018 including setting up our Women's Network, providing support to female consultants applying for Clinical Excellence Awards, and developing a scoring matrix for competency-based job interviews which determine how an applicant meets the person specification for a job role.

"The impact of these actions is not yet reflected in our Gender Pay Gap Report because this year's report uses salary figures as of 31 March 2018 - before the action plan was implemented - but we hope to see the impact in next year's report.

"At next week's Trust Board meeting, the Board will be asked to approve an action plan based on the findings of this year's Gender Pay Gap Report in order to drive further improvements."