A doctor who was rejected from a senior role in Swindon believes the application process was ‘unfair and covertly racist’ and has argued that the lack of ethnic minority representation at leadership levels contributes to the town’s GP shortage problem.

Dr Jason Seewoodhary, 42, attended a recruitment event when he applied for a position as a training programme director in Swindon. 

But he was dismayed to find that equality and diversity measures had not been implemented; he was interviewed by an all-white panel and was not asked any questions about diversity. 

And, after investigating the matter, a representative from NHS Health Education England South West acknowledged in a letter to Dr Seewoodhary that the recruitment event “did not meet the standards expected” to ensure a “fair and inclusive process”.

In response to Dr Seewoodhary’s complaint, Dr Geoff Smith also highlighted HEE’s agreement that a recruitment panel where every member is white “does not support an equitable process”. HEE has now introduced a scheme where cultural ambassadors will be present during the recruitment process. 

Dr Seewoodhary thinks that BAME GPs are discouraged from staying in Swindon when they have been trained because they do not see other BAME doctors in positions of power. 

According to Dr Seewoodhary, around 60% of GP trainees are from BAME groups and this is not reflected on a managerial level.

He added: “There’s a shortage of GPs in Swindon. Swindon has an all-white training body and the trainees are predominantly from BAME groups. This might explain why people can’t get to see a GP. 

“When trainees qualify as GPs, they go to places where BAME doctors are in high roles like London, Leicester and Birmingham. They know they’re more likely to get career progression in these places.

“When everyone around you is white, they think, ‘I’m not going to succeed here’.

“The poor patients in Swindon will suffer as they struggle to get GP appointments.”

In the letter to Dr Seewoodhary, Dr Smith seemed to agree with this assessment.

He wrote: “You comment on the lack of diversity across our faculty in the South West, and I can only agree. 

“It is clear that, across all specialties, the ethnicity of our senior faculty is not reflective of the substantive workforce nor trainee demographics.

“We are committed trying to resolve this, and our Professional Development team have been tasked with building programmes to support the identification and training of future faculty that are representative of our trainees in order to address this.

“There are significant lessons both for HEE in the South West and nationally in how we ensure that the recruitment of clinical posts is equitable.”

A HEE representative told the Adver they could not comment on the matter because Dr Seewoodhary has escalated the complaint.

They added: “We are committed to improving our recruitment processes to ensure that the best and most able candidate is appointed through a fair and inclusive process.

“Steps we are taking to improve our recruitment process include training panel members, the introduction of cultural ambassadors for recruitment, representative panels and taking steps to develop a training faculty that is more representative of our doctors in postgraduate training programmes.”