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Male staff at Notts NHS trust paid 28.8 per cent more than females on average

By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter

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Male staff working at a Nottinghamshire hospital trust are paid 28.8 per cent more per hour on average than female colleagues, new figures have revealed.

But the gender pay gap at the trust has decreased year-on-year and extra work is planned to address the imbalance among employees.

New Sherwood Forest Hospital Trust (SFH) papers reveal male staff are paid £23.08 per hour on average.

Female employees at the trust have an average hourly wage of £16.44 per hour, leaving an average hourly gap of about £6.64.

This is despite there being 5,620 female staff at the trust compared with 1,213 male employees.

Trust papers say the gap is the result of a greater percentage of male staff working in higher-paid jobs across its pay scale.

The highest rate of pay has 524 male employees out of the 1,213 total across the organisation, the equivalent of 43.2 per cent of all male staff.

However, for female employees, 1,209 out of 5,620 are in the upper rate of pay – working out at 21.5 per cent, almost exactly half the male equivalent.

For the upper-middle pay scale, 260 male staff are based in these roles – 21.4 per cent of the total – compared with 1,500 female staff, or 26.7 per cent.

The lowest pay scale has 234 males, or 19.3 per cent, compared with 1,499 female staff, or 26.7 per cent.

And the lower-middle pay scale has 1,412 female staff, or 25.12 per cent, compared with 195 males, or 16.01 per cent.

The trust says it saw an increase in the number of female staff taking on higher-paid roles in 2022, while the number of male staff remained “broadly the same”.

This, it says, helped to decrease the gender pay gap by 5.4 per cent compared with 2021.

However, the gap is considerably lower when considering the median pay difference compared with the average.

Median pay is calculated by selecting the hourly rate at the mid-point of each pay scale for each gender group, rather than the average rate for all employees.

Figures show males earn a median hourly rate of £18.47, compared with £15.91 for female staff – a gap of £2.56 per hour or 13.8 per cent.

This is down 6.7 per cent from 2021, with the trust saying this figure is “more indicative” because it is “impacted less by the female to male ratio”.

In papers, the trust added: “The lower and lower middle quartiles … have the most pronounced gender split [because] female staff are the predominant majority.

“This is driving the mean and median pay differences.

“Included in the lower quartiles are administrative and ancillary staff, such as health care support workers, that traditionally attract a higher proportion of female staff.

“The upper quartile has a lower proportion of female staff than the other quartiles because of different gender splits in medical staffing and senior management roles.

“Although, the gap here is closing.”

The issue was discussed during the trust’s board meeting on April 6, with directors told measures are in place to cut the gap further.

Work includes ensuring gender balance during recruitment panels and attempts to “identify and address the gap in the female medical workforce”.

The trust also plans to address pay gaps when they are evident and “actively promote leadership development opportunities” to lower-paid and female staff.

In the meeting, Robert Simcox, director of people, added: “We’ve been taking some positive action, clearly there’s more work to be done but, as we develop our people strategy, there will be a continued focus on addressing the gap.”

He also confirmed the figures are recorded in a “binary way”, meaning they do not include people who are transgender or identify as non-binary or inter-sex.

The trust runs King’s Mill, Mansfield Community and Newark Hospitals and employs nearly 7,000 people.