THE TRADE UNION LEADER

Prof Banfield’s personal manifesto championing fairness is hard to disagree with – although, as he admits, he’s led by the heart.

He has a clear vision for his role as BMA council chair and as a doctor: ‘If something’s unfair or unjust, I can’t resist leading with my chin into the fight,’ he says. ‘I’m unafraid of what others think of me.’

As a consultant obstetrician in a deprived area of North Wales, he’s in regular contact with health inequalities: they present at his antenatal clinics every week. He often thinks back to a young woman who came to reception cradling what she said was an abandoned baby she’d found.

‘But it just didn’t feel right so we spent a long time talking to her,’ says Prof Banfield. ‘It turned out that she’d given birth to the child, hadn’t told anyone, hadn’t got any money, and thought that this was the best thing for her baby.’

He’s also concerned about lack of fairness in the workplace, which often manifests as disrespect. That might be a patient’s family being kept in the dark because they ‘wouldn’t understand’ the technicalities of treatment – or a consultant who introduces himself by his full name and title, and his junior colleague by her first name.

Prof Banfield’s definition of fairness is closely related to equality and treating people as individuals.

‘We have to try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. I can never fully understand what it’s like to be them, so perhaps I should listen to what they’re saying and feeling.’

Challenging hierarchies

Upholding fairness, outworking it in practice, stems from this fundamental belief in the need to value people as individuals, for Prof Banfield.

In organisational culture, this means promoting diversity and inclusion. But it can also be as simple as recognising a colleague is facing challenges in their health or personal circumstances – perhaps by sending them home.

‘Your effectiveness, efficiency, patient safety, productivity as a team, these are all linked to people being able to contribute to the best of their abilities,’ says Prof Banfield.

Dismantling unnecessary hierarchies is an important part of this too, he believes. Prof Banfield has made it a priority to flatten BMA structures –including the decision not to differentiate between ‘senior’ and ‘junior’ members – and he hopes these changes will influence workplace culture too.

‘When I was a theatre porter at 18, this man came bouncing down the corridor in his white boots, stuck his hand out and said, “Hi, I’m Steve George, I’m the houseman”. And I said, “Hi, I’m Phil, I’m only the porter”. And he said: “You’re never ‘only’ anything. If the porter doesn’t get the patients, we can’t operate”.’

Prof Banfield is struck by NASA’s example, where hierarchies shift depending on the task at hand. ‘They’ll switch between leader and follower, depending on what the task is and who has the best skills to lead it.

‘In medicine, sometimes the only difference between me and the person who’s starting out or qualifying is that I’m older. We need to recognise we’re all in this together.’

Prof Banfield acknowledges these are ambitious goals, especially in the current climate. But he’s also adamant that every practical step, however small, can help make medicine fairer – whether it’s protecting whistle-blowers or being active bystanders who call out poor behaviour. ‘We can all influence attitude and culture, and model good behaviour. The world isn’t fair but it’s our job to try to make it fairer.’