Religion or belief – The latest DH governance ‘muddle’

The Department of Health in England (DH) has published Religion or belief – A practical guide for the NHS.

In most respects it looks like a very good document. It is part of a suite of equality guides and gives practical advice to NHS organisations to help them comply with recent equality legislation, understand the role of religion or belief in the context of healthcare, and integrate this knowledge into single equality schemes (SESs).

Characteristically, the DH has, however, got itself into a muddle over governance issues. The guidance states in Worksheet 1 (pages 44-47) that a trust board member should be identified as “responsible for religion or belief issues”; that trust boards should agree action plans in relation to religion or belief’ and boards should monitor religion or belief matters.

Board level monitoring is fine, but the notion of holding a board member responsible for religion or belief, or the board ‘rubber stamping’ management’s action plans in respect of same, does considerable damage to the cause of good governance. Trust boards should be governing bodies, not management entities. Governance and management are two very different concepts and the DH appears to be stuck in the days when trust boards were introduced as management boards. Times have changed and Healthcare Governance Reviewbelieves that the DH needs to get its act together around governance issues for the benefit of the NHS.

Download the DH publication Religion or belief – A practical guide for the NHS here.

Action to improve proportion of black and minority ethnic members on NHS trust boards

According to the Health Service Journal (6 November 2008), the Department of Health (DH) is “working with the Cabinet Office to set a target for a public service agreement [on enforcing the proportion of black and ethnic minority (BME) managers in each trust]… and looking at how they’ll be set locally.”

DH director for equality and human rights Surinder Sharma apparently told HSJ the issue was being treated as a priority to make boards more representative of their local populations.

For further information, see the HSJ article here.