Under a fifth of CEA applicants in 2013 and 2014 were women

Women accounted for less than a fifth of all applicants for clinical excellence awards in 2013 and 2014.

The figures were reported by Sally Davies, president of the Medical Women’s Federation, who has seen the data on applicants for the 2014 award round in England. She said that 270 (19.2%) of the 1404 doctors who applied for an award in 2014 were women.

In total 300 clinical excellence awards were given out. Forty six (15%) went to women, giving a rate of success among women of 17%, and 254 (85%) went to men, a 22% success rate, Davies said.

The Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards’ annual report on the 2013 award round said that women accounted for 19% (320) of the 1682 applicants to the awards in England.1 The report said that the committee took sex equality “very seriously” and that it had undertaken analyses of the application rates and success rates of women over several years.

“These data demonstrate that whilst women are overall much less likely to apply for an award, when they do apply they are generally as competitive and successful as men,” the report said.

Davies said that the figures showed that more women needed to apply for clinical excellence awards. “I’m very keen to encourage women to apply, as they are often undertaking excellent work,” she said. “Women don’t tend to put themselves forward for such awards.” Female doctors often suffered from “imposter syndrome,” she said. “It’s the idea that women are always waiting to be rumbled and therefore don’t think they are good enough to apply.”

The reason the number of applications from men and from women fell in 2014 was, Davies said, because the standard needed to achieve an award had been raised. “The number of awards available in 2010 was halved to 300, which means the level of excellence over and above has to be higher to get an award, and there are lots of fantastic people who just miss out,” she said.

Davies also argued that regional subcommittees of the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards needed to have an equal representation of the sexes to ensure a better spread of successful applicants. “Women must be encouraged to put themselves forward to sit on regional ACCEA committees,” she said. “The way to do that is to make it more widely known when recruitment is taking place and improve awareness.”

The advisory committee said that despite an increase in the number of female members of its regional subcommittees over the years, “there remains a significant gender imbalance in the professional and employer categories.”