Differential Attainment in Career Progression for Doctors in the UK

Differential attainment in career progression in the NHS is a complex issue with many interplaying factors apart from individual protected characteristics. In this paper, we examine the attainment gap, causes for these disparities and some recommendations to reduce the gap. Our review shows that there is significant DA between groups of doctors on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race and country of primary medical qualification. The likely causes are bias, lack of opportunity, poor supervision, mentorship, sponsorship, dichotomous treatment of doctors based on training or non-training status and cultural exclusion. Data is not monitored or reported and there is little organisational accountability. Solutions are likely to include transparent data on recruitment as well as progression for benchmarking, training support for all doctors, initiatives which are sensitive to gender, parental responsibility, cultural heritage, language and robust supervision including mentorship and sponsorship. This scoping review forms part of the Alliance for Equality in Healthcare Professions project on Differential Attainment chaired by the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) and will be integrated into the Bridging the Gap project undertaken by BAPIO Institute for Health Research (BIHR). This work is part of six domains of doctors' careers in the NHS.

Differential Attainment in Leadership Roles in the UK NHS

Aim – to review the evidence on differential attainment in leadership positions in the NHS and develop an expert consensus In this review we will explore in-depth, the current data surrounding differential attainment in leadership roles in the UK NHS, possible reasons for these disparities, and what interventions may address this inequality. This scoping review forms part of the Alliance for Equality in Healthcare Professions project on DA chaired by the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) and will be integrated into the Bridging the Gap project undertaken by BAPIO Institute for Health Research (BIHR).

The ‘Mind the Gap’ project: Investigating the difference, in performance, between design and the building ‘in-use’

We have the ability to design and construct high performance buildings; and the knowledge and skills to operate them in an effective and efficient manner — so why does it not happen? The underpinning reasons for this gap in performance are generally unknown; there is a lot of speculation and hypothesis but little investigation and hard evidence. The ‘Mind the Gap’ project aims to collect evidence from typical exemplars of office buildings investigate the reasons for their performance and determine the underpinning causes. The first phase of the project will produce a methodology based on the learnings from five trial buildings and then rolled out in a second phase over a larger number of buildings. This paper presents some initial data and findings.

Artificial photosynthesis: understanding water splitting in nature

In the context of a global artificial photosynthesis (GAP) project, we review our current work on nature's water splitting catalyst. In a recent report (Cox et al . 2014 Science 345, 804–808 ( doi:10.1126/science.1254910 )), we showed that the catalyst—a Mn 4 O 5 Ca cofactor—converts into an ‘activated’ form immediately prior to the O–O bond formation step. This activated state, which represents an all Mn IV complex, is similar to the structure observed by X-ray crystallography but requires the coordination of an additional water molecule. Such a structure locates two oxygens, both derived from water, in close proximity, which probably come together to form the product O 2 molecule. We speculate that formation of the activated catalyst state requires inherent structural flexibility. These features represent new design criteria for the development of biomimetic and bioinspired model systems for water splitting catalysts using first-row transition metals with the aim of delivering globally deployable artificial photosynthesis technologies.