DIVERSITY & INCLUSION IN THE WORKFORCE
Breaking down barriers for female engineers
HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the first half of an IHEEM ‘Diversity and Equality’ roundtable held in early November at the London offices of Eta Projects, at which participants discussed topics including encouraging more people from diverse genders and black and ethnic minorities into the sector, ‘alternative routes’ into healthcare engineering, and some of the workplace experiences – good and bad – of female engineers in a still largely male-dominated sector. February’s HEJ will report on the discussion’s second half.
Improving the diversity of the healthcare engineering and estate management workforce by encouraging not only more young women, but also individuals from different genders and a black and ethnic minority (BAME) backgrounds, to pursue a career in the field, has been a long- standing IHEEM goal, and was one of the ‘Five Key Themes’ set out by current CEO, Pete Sellars during his Presidency. The importance that the Institute attaches to the subject was reflected at October’s Healthcare Estates 2019, when a dedicated afternoon session on the conference’s first day saw a range of speakers – many of them women, and from backgrounds including healthcare engineering, consulting engineering, and Police Scotland – discuss both the challenges and the opportunities for different genders and those from a BAME background working in the sector. During the session, delegates were encouraged to put questions and comments into a ‘Comments’ box, with the promise that they would be addressed during a subsequent forum. That forum was a roundtable meeting held after the show on 8 November at the London offices of consulting engineers, Eta Projects, courtesy of director, Kim Shelley, CIPD, MIET, AMIHEEM, MWES, a member of IHEEM’s Diversity & Inclusion Working Group. The participants were: n Kim Shelley, a director at Eta Projects, an IHEEM member, and a member of the Institute’s Diversity & Inclusion Group.
n Trish Marchant, Senior engineer at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. (CUHFT), a member of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET).
n Claire Hennessy, director of Estates & Facilities at Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust – a Fellow of IHEEM, and member of the IHEEM Diversity & Inclusion Group (who took part via conference call).
n Duane Passman, director of Redevelopment (the ‘3Ts’ project) for
Claire Hennessy and Duane Passman took part via conference call.
The four participants that took part in person in the roundtable debate at Eta Projects’ London offices in November – left to right, Kim Shelley, Trish Marchant, Monira Kaouech, and Lizzie Gibbons.
the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, at Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust – a Fellow of IHEEM, and member of the IHEEM Diversity & Inclusion Group. (who took part via conference call).
n Lizzie Gibbons, Project Delivery specialist at Aeromark.
n Monirah Kaouech, IHEEM’s Project Support officer, a member of the IHEEM Diversity & Inclusion Group, and a STEM Ambassador (who facilitated the roundtable, and acted as an ‘observer’).
n Jonathan Baillie, Editor of Health Estate Journal. (reporting for HEJ).
Own careers and current role The discussion began with the participants introducing themselves, by giving a little information on their own careers and current role. Kim Shelley, a director at Eta Projects, explained that she has worked
for the consulting engineering firm for the past 12 years, and that her principal responsibilities today are CRM, finance, and HR. Trish Marchant, meanwhile, is Senior engineer at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, where she is in overall charge of mechanical and electrical infrastructure for the whole site, with a team of a nine engineers. She was previously Energy manager at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, and, before that, worked as an engineer in the water industry. A Chartered Engineer, she holds an Electrical Engineering degree, and has a range of other qualifications in areas including civil engineering and production engineering. Next to introduce herself was Claire Hennessy, director of Estates & Facilities at Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust. Having originally trained as a Weapons Engineer in the Royal Navy, she was subsequently an apprentice electrician at Hammersmith Hospital, thereafter progressing her career through the NHS. Her other roles have included head of Estates at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Estates manager at Watford General Hospital, Estates officer at Hemel Hempstead Hospital, assistant Works manager at London’s Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, and Electrical apprentice/craftsperson at Hammersmith Hospital. Today she is in overall charge of a 230-strong Estates & Facilities Team at Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust, which has 22 freehold sites, and clinics in 339 sites across the city.
January 2020 Health Estate Journal 25
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