New equal opportunity job targets set

The Department of Health has published equal opportunity
recruitment goals for primary care trusts, health authorities and
NHS trusts.

The DoH has set targets for the end of 2004 of 50 per cent of
appointments to be women, 43 per cent of chairpersons to be women,
at least 10 per cent of all appointments to come from an ethnic
minority background, and 4 per cent to have disabilities.

But the targets vary little – and in some cases represent a fall
– from the situation in March this year, where 49.8 per cent of
appointments and 39.8 per cent of chairpersons were women, 12.3 per
cent came from an ethnic minority and 3.1 per cent had
disabilities.

In April the NHS Appointments Commission took over
responsibility for recruitment to the 164 PCTs, 99 health
authorities and 354 NHS trusts, which account for more than 4,000
public appointments.