The Critical Issues Conference: Diversity in Modern Healthcare Leadership

The Critical Issues Conference: Diversity in Modern Healthcare Leadership

The diverse nature of the NHS is often attributed as one of its greatest assets, bringing in knowledge and expertise from across the world, as well as its talented pool of domestic healthcare professionals. However, even in 2025, challenges remain for those from disadvantaged backgrounds in reaching leadership positions in the NHS. The Critical Issues Conference will aim to explore the barriers that exist for healthcare professionals making their way up the ladder in the NHS, who is affected and why. We’ll hear from those that are in the early stages of their NHS career, offering insight to our student body around what they can expect when making the transition from education to the NHS workforce. The conference will conclude by considering what it takes to reach leadership positions in the NHS in 2025, including initiatives that are helping to drive change and increase accessibility into leadership positions, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Critical Issues Conference – What we can learn?

The Annual Symposium addresses the theme of Disadvantaged Groups in 2025: 'A Sociological Analysis of the NHS' where Professor Mala Rao CBE will join us to contextualise the state of play of leadership in the NHS, where barriers exist and which groups are affected most in their journey to reach leadership positions today.

The event will then move to our second session titled Experiences in Context – 'A viewpoint from from early careers in the NHS’ where an interactive discussion will take place, articulating what it is like for NHS professionals to step into the workforce today, including observations of challenges they perceive on the path to leadership positions. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions to the panel in order to discuss these experience in detail.

The Lord Ribiero Lecture will invite Dame Ruth May to join us to consider the key question of ‘How to Succeed in Modern Healthcare Leadership’. This talk will explore routes to leadership in the NHS, including what is being done to increase diversity of people in these roles, as well as initiatives that are looking to increase access for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As the School of Medicine at ARU plays its part in the process of continued medical education development, we are pleased to offer this Conference to all those involved in the provision of healthcare and medical education. We are also excited to invite our own student body and wider faculty staff to join us for this event. Please register your free place to join us for this event, the programme for which is shown below.

Info: Barriers to leadership in the NHS, who is affected and why?

Info: A viewpoint from early careers in the NHS. Panel Discussion and Q&A - Observations from modern healthcare professionals on early NHS career and future prospects

Info: Keynote - Overcoming barriers and routes to leadership for modern healthcare professionals

Host or Publisher School of Medicine, Anglia Ruskin University