All male candidate lists for senior roles highlight BMA’s lack of progress on equality, say female leaders

The BMA has defended its record on promoting equality, after an all male list of candidates for the top elected posts of chair of council and treasurer sparked claims that it has been too slow to act over alleged “institutional sexism.”

Leading female doctors said they were “very disappointed” with what seemed to be a lack of meaningful change at the BMA when it came to removing barriers to female leadership since a review into sexism and sexual harassment at the association by Daphne Romney QC was published in 2019.1

The four candidates to succeed Chaand Nagpaul as the BMA’s chair of council are Phil Banfield, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology in North Wales, Tom Dolphin, a consultant anaesthetist in London, Vishal Sharma, a consultant cardiologist in Liverpool, and David Wrigley, a GP in Carnforth, Lancashire. The two candidates for the BMA’s new treasurer are Peter Holden, a GP in Matlock, Derbyshire, and Trevor Pickersgill, a consultant neurologist in Cardiff.

The all male list of candidates emerged as the BMA was due to publish a report, seen by The BMJ, documenting the progress it said it has made to embed the Romney recommendations.2

Fay Wilson, an elected member of the BMA’s GP committee and a former member of the BMA council, told The BMJ, “The four man candidate line-up for the council and the two man line-up for treasurer tell you all you need to know. I don’t think the BMA has accepted it has a problem with institutional misogyny. The candidate line-ups are just another symptom of it.”

Romney’s review heard evidence of an “old boys’ club” culture in which women were undermined, bullied, and in some instances sexually harassed.3 The review recommended steps to improve behaviour and widen representation, such as training for all members on diversity and equality and a time limit for appointments on BMA committees.

Zoe Norris, a senior BMA GP committee representative who gave evidence to the Romney review, also criticised a “lack of progress” and warned of the signal being sent by the BMA having no women standing as chair of council. She told The BMJ, “We continue to have the main trade union for the medical profession that in no way reflects the demographic of doctors in the UK among its senior leadership team. It seems unlikely to achieve this in the next five years, based on the current shortlist.”

Helena McKeown, a former chair of the BMA’s representative body, who stepped down from her role last year, and who helped establish a new BMA network for elected women in 2019 in response to Romney’s report, told The BMJ, “One of my aspirations [for the network] was that every election for a chair of a committee or council would have at least one female candidate, so I’m very disappointed because I don’t feel I achieved what I set out to do.”4

In a joint statement to The BMJ, Rachel Podolak and Neeta Major, the BMA’s two recently appointed co-chief executives, said it would be “remiss” to view the candidate line-ups as a setback for equality at the organisation. They said, “The recent council election had seen a significant increase in the representation of ethnic minority members, including women from an ethnic minority background, and that the percentage of seats held by men had fallen below 60% for the first time.

“In the past three years the representation of women has increased right across the BMA’s committees, including into positions of leadership.

They added, “GPCE [GPC England] has elected its first woman chair from an ethnic minority background. Our medical ethics committee, international committee, patient liaison group, and public health medicine committee have all appointed or elected women chairs. Our junior doctors committee and medical students committee are also chaired by women.”

The BMA also confirmed that Latifa Patel, an ST7 paediatric respiratory trainee in the north west of England, has been elected chair of the association’s representative body.