There is emphatic evidence that diverse boards make the best decisions. We want to increase the diversity of our boards and particularly encourage interest from women, people from the local Black Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, LGBT communities, younger people and those with lived experience of disability, who we know are all under-represented in non executive director and chair roles.
Chairs and non-executive directors sit at Board level in all kinds of NHS Trusts and Integrated Care Boards within Integrated Care Systems. These are multi-million pound organisations with unitary boards of executives and non-executives delivering and commissioning healthcare.
Being a Non-Executive Director – What you get out of it?
The skills you bring…
Being a Non-Executive Director – Stories from NHS Board members
If you have experience of working on or with boards, and have a skill or lived experience to bring to help NHS boards operate effectively on behalf of their populations, don’t be afraid to get involved.
There are a huge range of non-executive skills and backgrounds which are tremendously helpful to NHS Boards, including traditional skillsets such as finance, legal, corporate governance, HR and OD, clinical and regulatory.
However, many other skills and experience are equally valuable, including: IT and digital, housing, property and estate management, strategy and innovation, marketing and customer experience, communications and PR, local government, lived experience as a patient, carer or service user or a background in representing local communities.
Trust Chairs will usually work 3 – 4 days a week on behalf of the trust, although Chairs may not need to be physically at the trust for all of this time, as their duties will also include reading papers and speaking to other board members. Non-executive director roles typically ask for a commitment of 3 – 4 days a month, depending on the trust and whether you choose to take on a Committee Chair role in addition to the basic non-executive director role.
NHS England have created the NExT Director scheme to support people from diverse backgrounds to gain experience of being a NED
If you are already a non-executive director in an NHS trust you may be interested in the Aspirant Chair programme.
Current chair and non-executive vacancies
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