Fury over ‘sexist’ NHS job ad that says ‘preferably someone who identifies as a woman’

The NHS has been slammed as sexist after advertising for a senior role in which the candidate ‘identifies as female’.

Barts Health NHS Trust in London is hiring a director of operations that will be paid an annual salary of around £100,000.

Their duties will be to ensure ‘safe, high quality and efficient delivery of the day to day operational management of England’s largest trust. 

A job ad posted on LinkedIn and the NHS recruitment site says: ‘We are particularly interested in receiving applications from candidates who identify as female.’

The Men and Boys Coalition charity told MailOnline it was ‘discriminatory’ and flew in the face of equality.

Its chief executive, Dan Bell, told MailOnline: ‘This advert is implying in a very clear and unsubtle way that men should not bother to apply, and if they do, they are unlikely anyway to be successful.

‘This is illegal and discriminatory against male applicants as set out in Government Guidance and the Equality Act.’

He added that men who did apply for this role couldn’t be confident they would be treated the same as a female candidate.  

‘As it stands, no one can really have full confidence this is an open, equal and fair recruitment where all applicants have an equal chance which is discriminatory,’ he said.

The job ad – first posted online on August 15 – also says candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds are ‘particularly welcomed’ to apply, because ‘they are underrepresented within Barts Health at a senior management level.’

But Mr Bell said the ad’s preference for female candidates failed to account for the fact men from minority backgrounds are also underrepresented in senior NHS jobs. 

‘It also does not take into account a broader perspective on barriers as BME males who are unrepresented in senior NHS positions and they are unlikely to succeed either if they applied,’ he said.

Phil Mitchell, a professional therapist who works with male victims of sexual abuse and has written extensively about sexism towards men, also criticised the ad.  

‘Why are they “particularly” interested in candidates who identify as female? What’s the reason? It appears that no specific reason has been provided,’ he said.

‘Surely it would make more sense to encourage people to apply for the job based on their experience and abilities rather than their sex.’

He added the wording could deter men from applying. 

‘Some men may believe that their application will be treated less favourably because they do not identify as female,’ he said.

He also pointed out the double-standards of the advert. 

‘I can’t help but wonder how people may have responded to the ad if it had said “… we are particularly interested in receiving applications from candidates who identify as male”,’ he said.

‘I am not convinced that focusing on, and including gender in this way is helpful. Maybe we should just let people make their own choices, and choose to apply for jobs that they are naturally interested in.’

Barts Health was contact by MailOnline for comment.

It is the latest woke row to hit the NHS. Earlier this month, this website exposed how NHS-backed guidance on periods had omitted the terms ‘women’ and ‘girls’.

Instead the guidance, published on a website called ‘Bloody Brilliant’, which cost taxpayers £84,000 and was set up by the Welsh Government, used terms like ‘people who bleed’ and ‘half of the population’.

But after the MailOnline’s exposure, the branch of NHS Wales responsible for the advice said the language will be changed to include ‘women’ and ‘girls’.

It follows a string of other MailOnline  revelations of NHS advice being ‘de-sexed’ in favour of gender-neutral language in women’s advice pages for the menopause and female cancers.