IHEEM PAST-PRESIDENTS’ ROUNDTABLE – PART TWO
NHS got into was transferring risk down which they probably didn’t need to, or simply being charged a lot of money for the convenience of someone else managing that risk for them.” GM: “Most of the monitoring capability transferred under TUPE to the new PFI provider, so you didn’t have that ‘intelligent client’ necessarily checking that everything was in order, or looking ahead to see what the next thing would be and how we needed to prepare for it. In a good PFI, the contract sits on a shelf, because you’re providing a service, and because everyone is happy with what’s going on and all the monitoring happens. When it becomes adversarial, that’s when it gets expensive, and starts to unpick.”
Encouraging female entrants JB: “Thanks for those very interesting comments. The sixth and final question on the agenda is about encouraging female entrants to the profession, and what members of IHEEM and other professional institutes can do to increase the number of women working in the field.” PS: “Well in fact IHEEM has taken a lead on this. We’ve got a small group of people together within the Institute to lead this piece of work – Annabelle Morgan from head office, Manju Patel, and Claire Hennessy. Since we launched the initiative two and a half months ago, we’ve been inundated with women in our industry who want to be part of this. The Institute is committed to investing in this area. “Every time we discuss this – and not just not just among women – there has been unanimous agreement that this is the right thing to do. It’s just the start of a journey that links to supporting our members and encouraging other people to get closer to IHEEM. There’s a drive to do as much as we can to engage with and encourage women, but also to recognise that as an institute we have to look to the Engineering Council – who share a similar issue in recruiting females – to help us on the journey.” GM: “I’m going to be a bit controversial now. I think we need to encourage people into engineering, and not just focus on women. We do need though to show female role models so women can identify with that. We should accept, first and foremost, that we want new people in – male or female, and we need to use those female engineer role models to highlight that it doesn’t matter what your background – male, female, ethnicity, sexuality, or anything – you’re welcome in engineering. Please don’t look up to the top table, because it will be dominated by middle-aged male, white engineers, but rather at how you can make a difference. I think, overall, that only about 10 per cent of UK engineers are female. The problem is that if you start singling out women engineers, it can put some people off. We
22 Health Estate Journal June 2018
hear recently that we’d taken on a female technical apprentice. It’s a really positive change.” PS: “I think, in fact, that we have made a breakthrough, because one of our closest Institute allies is HefmA (the Health Estates and Facilities Management Association), which tends to deal with the softer FM services of healthcare facilities. HefmA is now actively collaborating with IHEEM, so we are reaching out to a new group of people, where traditionally there may be more females than males.”
Lawrence Turner said that in his early years, it was most unusual to see a woman in an engineering role.
should look past whether they’re male or female. We need to highlight that all are welcome.” JB: “So the crux of it is raising healthcare engineering’s profile as a whole?”
‘Is IHEEM doing enough?’ PS: “I hear what Greg is saying, but I would question whether we are doing enough to promote this? I don’t think we are, and that’s the key, as indeed is improving the gender balance. Currently I think only about 3% of our members are women. More importantly though, the question we should be asking is: ‘Why are they not coming to the Institute and seeing that as part of their career path?’ Maybe that’s what we are not doing enough to stress. It’s about supporting their careers.” GM: “You’re right. Try and make it inclusive, because there’s an unconscious bias in the industry. We are all geared to male, white, and middle-aged, because that’s what we’ve always done. We need to be a bit broader in outlook, and to try to be more inclusive.” JB: “What’s your experience of this, Lawrence?” LT: “I go back a long way. In my early years it was most unusual to see a woman in an engineering role. In fact I can’t recall one occasion when I first established Static Switching, as it was known then, of either employing a female engineer or dealing with a female engineer in a hospital or consulting engineers’ practice. It’s quite different now; I know that a number of our clients have female engineers on their team, and we employ a number of women in our engineering and technical teams. I was very pleased to
A different message GM: “I think we also need to engage using a different message. Within my company, for example, we recruited a female gas engineer for the first time. Brilliant – but she’s been on the cover of everything, which is where we’ve got it slightly wrong, and she has getting a bit fatigued with it all. When I asked her though, why she had wanted to become a gas engineer, she said: ‘I think of my grandma. She always got nervous when the gas boiler was due a service because it would be by a man, and she felt a bit intimidated by him. So I wanted to become a gas engineer so there would be an alternative for my grandmother to have someone with a softer approach.’ Actually, if we start to turn that round, and start exploring the caring contribution to care of healthcare engineering, that might be more appealing to women. I think with the younger generation it’s more about what their contribution to society can be – the more altruistic piece, i.e. by being an engineer, yes, you can build a career, but actually you can contribute to society and its improvement too.” PS: “The health and wellbeing of the nation.” GM: “That might be a better thread to use, rather than, ‘Oh, we’ve not got many women; please come and be an engineer.’” PS: “I think what we’re trying to do, as an Institute, is to recognise that there is a group of people we need to get a message to that we are here as an Institute to support their careers, benefiting both them and us.”
Impact on participants’ career JB:“As we now need to conclude our discussions, perhaps each of you can now say a bit about your time as President, what you remember particularly enjoying, and the impact that IHEEM has had on your career?” GM: “I think I was the first President to embark on a tour of the branches, because I wanted to connect the Institute and its members. I didn’t quite get round every one, but it was great just getting out there and seeing members in their committee-type environment and the passion there on the ground. That’s when
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