Each year, International Women’s Day takes place on the 8th March, and this year’s theme is “Accelerate Action”. It is all about the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality, and it puts a call out for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face.
The International Women’s Day website lists several suggestions that we, as individuals, can take in our daily lives to positively impact women’s advancement. It highlights how we can call out stereotypes, challenge discrimination, question bias, celebrate women’s success, and so much more.
NECS has developed a Calling In Calling Out Guide for our workforce. This includes tips on challenging negative behaviours and explains the concept of ‘calling in’ and ‘calling out’, to help colleagues reflect then act in ways to promote constructive change.
In addition to this, we further inclusion by sharing our knowledge and experiences, and encouraging and supporting each other. Earlier this year, we held a Women’s Health Safe Space Event, which was attended by women throughout the organisation who openly shared their lived experiences. We have taken several actions from the event to look at improving support for female colleagues within NECS, and these will be included as part of our 2025-26 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy.
Lastly, we published our Gender Pay Gap Report for 2024 and while it showed a reduction in the mean pay gap, there was also an increase in the median pay gap. Salaries for all colleagues are determined by the NHS agenda for change. This means that the only item influencing the pay gap, in NHS organisations, is the proportion of female and male colleagues at different pay quartiles. We can see from the pay gap report that there is an uneven distribution of men and women in the pay quartiles. For this reason, the actions that we plan to take forward to reduce the pay gap will be around career progression and development, and retention. These actions will also be incorporated within our 2025-26 EDI Strategy.
We encourage all our colleagues to help to shape our 2025-26 EDI Strategy, and further inclusion within our organisation.
For more information on our EDI strategies, go to /careers/why-necs/equality-and-diversity/