The Employee Director is a Non-Executive Director member of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) and Co-Chair of the Area Partnership Forum. They work in partnership with the Board and its Executive Management to provide advice on workforce issues directly affecting NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Working alongside the Employee Director are 2 Staff Partnership Leads and an APF Administrator.
Directly accountable to the Chairman of the Board and elected as the Chair of the Staff Side, the Employee Director and Employee Director’s Office is the Board’s conduit for 15 Trade Unions/Professional Organisations, and takes forward staff side views to influence Board Policies and to ensure that staff interests are properly reflected in Policy Development and encourage the ethos of Partnership Working.
Portraying positive behaviours and encouraging collaborative working, the Employee Director’s Office work with the Board to achieve its objectives and represent the views of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde staff by influencing debate and discussion.
To find out more about the Team and to access Trade Union/Professional Organisation links and other useful information, please see the tiles below.
If you require to speak with your Trade Union Lead or your local Staff Partnership Fora Staff Side Lead or Deputy Staff Side Lead, please see the contact lists below
Contact Details
Trade Union and Professional Organisation Leads
Contacts – Trade Union and Professional Organisational Leads
British and Irish Orthoptists Society (BIOS), Vacant (please refer to the BIOS website)
Local Staff Partnership Fora Staff Side Leads and Deputies
A Staff Side Lead and Deputy Staff Side Lead is elected through the Employee Director’s Office on a 4 year term to represent the Area Partnership Forum at your local Staff Partnership Forum. If you are required to contact either, please see contact details below.
This year the Chair, Prof John Brown CBE, presented two awards which recognise outstanding achievement, expertise, and dedication in patient care. In common with all the other awards, these celebrate our people’s collective efforts and the lasting impact they have had on the lives of the people of Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
Andrew Thomson
One of Andrew’s patients was going through a high risk pregnancy, when her husband sadly passed away after a two week battle with cancer. On hearing the news, Andrew called to offer his condolences and also talk about how he and his team could support the patient during this heart breaking time.
Andrew has an incredible way of communicating with patients and their families, with empathy and intuitiveness in abundance.
Unscheduled and Urgent Care Services
Due to unprecedented pressures, our Urgent and Unscheduled Care services have adapted to new and ever-changing situations which have been nothing short of remarkable. From the launch of the Flow Navigation Centre and Mental Health Assessment Units, to the ongoing dedication, commitment and professionalism of our EDs, IAUs, Community Pharmacies, MIUs, in-hours and Out of Hours GP Services, who have worked tirelessly with the support of diagnostic services.
At the start of the pandemic, it became clear that those who became very ill with Covid need a place where they could be seen and assessed safely and away from non-Covid patients.
Our Community Assessment Centres were created. This significant project required input from all of the eHealth teams to ensure the centres had all the necessary telephony and IT kit. They also needed to be set up very quickly.
eHealth teams responded to the needs of the service, working above and beyond to introduce new processes to book in Covid patients outwith hospital settings. The staff showed immense flexibility and changed their hours of work and their roles. The success of the CACs was due to the commitment, flexibility and team working across eHealth to support the Board in its response to the pandemic.
The William Cullen Prize for Excellence In Teaching and the William Cullen Prize for Service Innovation are awarded in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh.
William Cullen Prize for Innovation
Dr David Lockington is a Consultant Ophthalmologist based in Gartnavel General Hospital.
Dr Lockington identified the opportunity to transform unused rooms within the Tennent Institute of Ophthalmology library into a state of the art teaching suite for ophthalmology training. There are now three rooms which consist of an ophthalmic simulation area, a computer room for trainees and a seminar room.
The suite allowed simulated microsurgical skills to be developed and maintained during lockdowns, and is now used regularly by trainees and the wider multidisciplinary team. This development has been extremely well received by local trainees, and has addressed previously identified surgical training gaps.
Local ophthalmology training has been enhanced significantly, and to illustrate the impact, this initiative has since been replicated in other UK centres.
William Cullen Prize for Education – Joint Winners
Doctor Scott Morris is the Clinical Director for the Renal Unit, based in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, though which provides a full range of renal services to the West of Scotland.
This unit has for some time demonstrated a high standard of teaching and training, as evidenced by consistent and positive feedback from trainees. Trainees emerge as highly trained renal physicians, having been supported by a skilled group of established Consultants with a range of subspecialty interests.
The experience gained while attached to the unit is clearly valued by trainees, who highlight in particular the supervision they receive within the department, the supportive environment and the overall level of satisfaction working within a very strong team.
Dr Libby Ferguson and the Palliative care team based in the Marie Curie Hospice in Glasgow continue to provide an extremely high standard of clinical training which trainees recognise with positive responses to the Scottish trainee survey and National training survey.
There is a strong culture of educational governance identified within the centre. Trainees attached to the team there give very positive feedback in all areas, with Foundation trainees in particular highlighting the very supportive and educational environment provided by the team, and General Practice Specialty Trainees similarly appreciating the education and experience that is provided.
Staff Awards 2025
Every day our staff and volunteers go above and beyond to provide the best possible care and support to patients, relatives and staff. The Celebrating Success Awards held on 28th May 2025, are an opportunity for us to recognise that, and this year’s winners are fantastic examples of the hard work and incredible dedication all our staff display year round.
Every award winner and nominee should be immensely proud of themselves for the contribution they make to the delivery of healthcare in Scotland.
Find out about the winners and nominees from each award category below.
The winners were also announced live on the night on our social media channels (follow the #ggcawards hashtag).
All NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde employees can self-refer to the Occupational Health Service to access a wide range of confidential support services including counselling and psychological therapies.
The NHS Scotland Pension Scheme provides NHSGGC staff with a high-quality pension scheme that offers defined benefits at retirement and protection for your dependents based on your career average earnings.
The amount you pay towards your pension scheme depends on your ‘pensionable pay’ (which is your salary, wages, fees and any other regular payments but not any bonuses, expenses or overtime payments).
NHSGGC contributes 20.9% of your pensionable pay into the scheme on your behalf.
Key features of the NHS Scotland Pension Scheme include:
Benefits accrued on a Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) basis.
Normal pension age the same as the your State Pension Age.
Pension accrual rate of 1/54th of pensionable earnings each year.
Benefits for active members revalued each year using the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) plus 1.5%.
Benefits for preserved members increased using the CPI each year.
Valuable death benefits for your dependents.
Option to take part of your pension and continue working.
Enhanced pension for working longer than normal pension age.
Option to purchase additional pension.
Option to buy out the actuarial reduction if retiring from age 65 and before state pension age.
Option to take up to 25% of pension pot as a tax-free lump sum.
Staff are welcome to opt-out of the NHS Scotland Pension Scheme at any time. Staff are also welcome to contribute to an alternative pension provider if this is preferable.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is a Living Wage employer and, as such, the lowest available salary of £23,240 translates into an hourly rate of £11.89 per hour, which is considerably above the Scottish Living Wage rate of £10.90 per hour.
Agenda for Change is the NHS pay system for all staff directly employed by NHSGGC (with the exception of some very Senior Managers, Doctors, and Dentists). The current Agenda for Change salary scales can be viewed at the NHS Scotland Management Steering Group website.
The salary scales for medical and dental professionals (including Consultants, Junior Doctors, the Scottish Public Dental Service, Specialty Doctors and Associate Specialists) can be viewed at the NHS Scotland Management Steering Group website.
The salary scales for very senior managers (including executive directors and senior management) can be viewed on the NHS Scotland Publications library.
‘Growing our inclusive culture: Empowering everyone to promote Respect, Kindness and Equity.’
Thank you for attending the third annual NHSGGC Workforce Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Conference, which was held on Thursday 14 August 2025, at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Teaching and Learning Centre.
The workforce conference began with powerful opening remarks from Professor Jann Gardner, NHSGGC Chief Executive, followed by Dr Lesley Thomson KC, NHSGGC Board Chair. Delegates also received a comprehensive overview of the NHSGGC Workforce Equality Group Action Plan 2025-2026 from Liam Spence, Head of Staff Experience.
The 2025 EDI conference theme was “Growing our inclusive culture: Empowering everyone to promote Respect, Kindness and Equity”. The day included an inspirational keynote presentation from Dr Barbara Banda, you can view Barbara’s presentation here, presentation.
Through her consultancy, Neish Training, Gillian works across the UK with individuals and organisations in all sectors to help them fulfil their potential. The focus of her work is power, whether challenging the power inequities of racism, sexism and the other ‘isms’ or developing personal power through personal development programmes. Gillian designed and facilitates NHSGGC’s Leadership Programme for staff from Black and Minority Ethnic communities.
Led by Close the Gap, this session by Collett O’Connor explored how gender norms and stereotyping about women’s capabilities and interests can result in a segregation in the types of work that men and women do and how these can often underpin violence against women. The term ‘violence against women’ refers to violent and abusive behaviour that is carried out against women, primarily by men, as a result of their gender. This abusive behaviour can be physical, emotional, psychological, sexual or economic and stems from women’s deep-rooted inequality.
Police Scotland’s Lyndsay Brown led this session about hate crime, behaviours which are both criminal and rooted in prejudice. The legal definition of hate crime is “any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated (wholly or partly) by malice or ill will towards a social group.”
The person experiencing hate does not always need to be in one of these groups. We looked at why the act or offence was committed and the perceptions of those involved.
This breakout was presented by Steven Reid and focuses on the importance of “reasonable adjustments” for staff with disabilities or long-term health conditions, as required by the Equality Act 2010. Steven’s talk provided strong examples of adjustments, such as changes to the workplace or working arrangements. It also specifically addresses neurodiversity, noting that it’s a natural variation and not a disorder. The presentation encourages managers to have early and sensitive discussions with staff to ensure they have the support they need to thrive at work.
Dr Noreen Shields introduced the new NHSGGC Equality Scheme for 2025-2029, which outlines the Board’s commitment to creating a more fair and inclusive workplace. The scheme incorporates engagement and feedback from staff, patients and community groups. It sets out new equality outcomes and lays out the responsibilities of managers and staff in promoting equality and tackling discrimination. It also explains the process used to identify and deliver areas of improvement and the role we all share to help create a fairer NHSGGC.
This session took delegates through some of the key principles of Speaking Up and being an Active Bystander, empowering staff across NHSGGC to challenge poor behaviours. Drawing on lessons from our Sexual Harassment: Cut It Out programme, Anthony Craig, Senior EDI Advisor, showed delegates when we challenge poor behaviours, we can shift the boundaries of what is considered acceptable within our workplace culture.
Civility Saves Lives (CSL) breakout session was delivered by Julie Pearson and covered how we treat each other at work. The aim of the CSL campaign in NHSGGC is to encourage positive workplace relationships and environments where the culture is improved by promoting the value of kind, caring and respectful interactions. The campaign also aims to raise awareness and understanding of the impact that rude, unprofessional and unproductive behaviour has and how calling it out with a compassionate approach can help to address incivility.
Workforce Strategy 2021-2025
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) is an organisation which is renowned for modern high-quality patient care and progressive medicine. It is therefore vital that we continue to attract and nurture the most talented and public service focused people, both locally and from around the world and achieve our ambition of ‘Growing our Great Community’.
Our Workforce Strategy 2021-2025 sets out how we will achieve this and develop NHSGGC under our corporate objective of ‘Better Workplace’.
Our current and future employees are our greatest strength and this Strategy describes the foundations, framework, support and opportunities which underpin our four workforce pillars.
Health and Wellbeing
Learning
Leaders
Recruitment and Retention
In order to achieve the ambitions outlined within the Workforce Strategy 2021-2025, a suite of supporting strategies and plans have been developed to operationalise the actions contained within the Strategy.
Staff Health Strategy 2023-2025
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde continues to prioritise the health and wellbeing of our workforce. Our current and future staff are our greatest strength and this Strategy underpins the Board’s Workforce Strategy and reflects our aspirations to be a Better Workplace.
The focus of the Staff Health Strategy 2023-2025 has moved towards recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and support to staff to improve their wellbeing as new challenges arise. We have a strong foundation to build upon as evidenced by the many initiatives that have been introduced and embedded, including the Active Staff Programme, provision of Mental Health Support and the ongoing rollout of Peer Support. None of this is possible without the help and support of local teams across the organisation and Staff Partnership colleagues. Our staff equalities forums and the Staff Health Working Groups in Acute Services and our six Health and Social Care Partnerships also have a key role to play in delivering the actions which will flow from our strategic intent.
Internal Communications and Employee Engagement Strategy 2022-2025
Engaging internal communications and high levels of employee engagement are crucial to continually developing our aim of being a better workplace. This underpins all our NHSGGC’s Workforce Strategy actions.
The NHSGGC Chief Executive and Employee Director have reinforced their joint commitment to improving the safety, health and wellbeing culture within NHSGGC, through the development of the SHaW Framework.
All staff have a responsibility for safety, health and wellbeing within NHSGGC. A set of guidance documents outlined the roles and responsibilities for employees, managers and directors.
Workforce Plan 2022-2025
Each year NHSGGC is required by the Scottish Government to develop and publish a workforce plan which sets out the strategic direction for workforce development and the resulting changes to our workforce over the next year and beyond.
The NHSGGC Workforce Plan is developed using the NHS Scotland six steps methodology and the NHS Careers Framework. Both of these workforce models enable us to take a coherent view of the workforce across all job families and sub-groups. The Career Framework in particular is a useful tool for modelling and implementing workforce change and we are promoting and encouraging the use of this tool in NHSGGC.
Local workforce planning activity is managed within the Acute Services Division and within the Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs). In addition, there are workforce plans which focus on cross sector issues and plans based on service delivery models.
The workforce implications of service change and redesign are also set out in NHSGGC’s financial and service plans at Board and Divisional/HSCP level. These workforce implications highlight any planned recruitment activity and are further analysed in the project implementation documents (PIDs) which are prepared to support any significant service change and which set out the financial, workforce and equality impacts of any proposed changes.
All of the above workforce information is analysed and summarised by the workforce planners in order to develop the annual NHSGGC Workforce Plan.
To help us achieve this vision, we have three ambitions:
Attract, retain and value the most skilled, diverse and talented people from our local communities and around the world, proving we are a world-class public sector organisation.
Empower our Human Resources and Organisational Development workforce to deliver a digitally-enabled world-class recruitment and onboarding service for our future talent that is inclusive and person-centred.
Ensure use of high-quality data to drive forward workforce planning and recruitment initiatives as we strive to be a world-class public service.
Our Recruitment and Attraction Plan sets out how we will achieve these ambitions, ensures recruitment and selection is inclusive and attracts candidates from diverse backgrounds, and develops NHSGGC under our corporate objective of ‘Better Workplace’.
Workforce Equality Action Plan
The Board Workforce Equality Group (WEG) aims to further develop NHSGGC as an inclusive organisation that engages with staff across all aspects of employment, in a way that reaches to the core of our organisational values and meets and exceeds our legal requirements as an equal opportunities employer. The WEG is responsible for the NHSGGC Workforce Equality Plan. The group includes representatives from the Staff Disability Forum, the Black and Minority Ethnic Staff Network, the LGBT+ Forum, staff-side, Human Resources and the Equality and Human Rights Team.
Our staff are treated fairly and consistently, with dignity and respect, in an environment where diversity is valued.
Our data collection is legally compliant and is used to improve equality and diversity of our workforce.
We can demonstrate that we are an exemplar employer by participating in recognised equality frameworks and charters.
We have taken all the actions in our control to reduce equal pay gaps by sex, disability and ethnicity.
Staff from equality groups are fully engaged in contributing to the Workforce Equality Group.
National workforce strategies
The NHSGGC Workforce Strategy 2021-2025 has been supported, driven, shaped and complemented by a suite of national workforce strategies aimed at Scotland’s health and social care workforce.
Health and social care: national workforce strategy
It supports their tripartite ambition of recovery, growth and transformation of their workforce and the actions they will take to achieve their vision and ambition.
Health and social care delivery plan
The Health and social care delivery plan sets out the Scottish Government’s programme to further enhance health and social care services. Working so the people of Scotland can live longer, healthier lives at home or in a homely setting and they have a health and social care system that:
is integrated;
focuses on prevention, anticipation and supported self-management;
will make day-case treatment the norm, where hospital treatment is required and cannot be provided in a community setting;
focuses on care being provided to the highest standards of quality and safety, whatever the setting, with the person at the centre of all decisions; and
ensures people get back into their home or community environment as soon as appropriate, with minimal risk of re-admission.
Previous strategies
Previous strategies and plans supporting the Workforce Strategy can be accessed below
Staff Health Strategy 2021-2023
NHSGGC has been and continues to be very mindful of the need to ensure we maximise all our efforts to ensure we can support the health and wellbeing of our workforce.
Our current and future staff are our greatest strength and this strategy underpins the Board’s Workforce Strategy and reflects our aspirations to Grow Our Great Community.
In order to ensure we are best placed to reflect and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as deliver our corporate objectives and transformation ambitions we need to ensure that our workforce are supported to deliver the changes we need to make. We recognise that our staff need time to recover and reflect on the impact of the pandemic on their mental health and wellbeing and whilst Mental Health was one of our top priorities in our previous strategy it is a key component of our ambitions for our Staff Health Strategy for 2021-2023.
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