There is a shortage of nurses. Why not recruit more men?
The shortage of nurses is a problem that will not be going away soon. There are already around 40,000 unfilled posts, with the number set to increase in the coming years. Given that the NHS is having trouble filling these roles, we should ask why so few men become nurses.
NHS recruitment campaigns are seemingly focused around images of diversity and inclusion. In reality, however, the nursing profession continues to emulate its historical form. White, yes, but also strongly female and often middle-aged. There is nothing wrong with that in principle, if it is where the skills, talent and experience lie. After all, it is the long hours of work and commitment from women nurses that have kept the NHS going through its darkest days. But this old-school gender culture will have to change now to make sure there are healthy flows of nursing recruits.
The heart of the problem lies in universities, where the gender divide in nursing-related degrees is the most unequal of any subject. Each year, 90 per cent of applicants are female. This lack of diversity reinforces the stigma that nursing is not for men. The feeling among male potential candidates is that they will be outsiders coming into a female world, struggling to fit in and being judged differently, with their particular skills and character not appreciated.
It is reasonable to ask whether interviews with potential male nurses, most often conducted by experienced female academics and former nurses, involve unconscious bias. Only half of male applicants at the University of Bradford’s nursing courses get an offer and only around a third of those offers are taken up.
The number of male applicants has in recent times increased 40 per cent, due to the impact of the pandemic on the jobs market, as well as efforts by the NHS to recruit more people all round. At first that increase seems large, but it is negligible when you consider how few men were applying in the first place.
Moreover, somewhere between applying and getting an offer, the interest from men seems to drop away. That is despite strong long-term prospects. Research this year by NHS Employers showed that, after nine years’ service, male nurses were more than twice as likely to have progressed up two pay bands (41 per cent) than female nurses (20 per cent).
It is with this situation in mind that the University of Bradford has begun a campaign to encourage more gender diversity in the whole stream of work around nursing. We are working with the local teaching hospital and other health authorities to involve input from male nurses. Our ultimate goal will be to change the nature of advertising, re-think the interview process and provide male nurse mentors.
NHS Employers has been focused on race-based barriers to recruitment. Black staff, to give one example, were found to be more than twice as likely to experience discrimination at work from a colleague than white staff. It is right to spend time on these racial problems, which involve a host of complex and sensitive issues that NHS management must mitigate in order to better retain staff. However, there is a more obvious and simpler problem to deal with, and that is the lack of male nurses entering the profession at all.
The urgency of the staff shortage makes it more vital than ever to figure out why some men still seem to prefer less attractive career prospects over nursing. Re-thinking the experiences from the start will be a way to unblock a much-needed source of recruits. It will also add to the richness and inclusiveness of the NHS.
The NHS’S dedication to diversity does not extend to helping males get into nursing