An NHS board which covers Suffolk and north east Essex has admitted it has "little diversity" and is taking steps to make its membership less "male and pale".

An agenda item entitled Board Capacity and Diversity - Interim Report will be raised at the next meeting of the NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) which will take place on Tuesday, September 27.

At the inaugural meeting of the NHS Suffolk and North East Essex ICB in July, chief executive Ed Garratt stated he was "conscious there was little diversity amongst Board Members and Non-Executive Members (NEMs) and was in favour of a membership review to address this".

The agenda also detailed that, when developing an Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) strategy, they would be drawing on research from outside the public sector which would help make the board less "male and pale".

Data collected by NHS England as part of the ICB recruitment process reveals that, in the East of England, the overall situation reflects the white, male-dominated nature of boards and that women continue to be disadvantaged.

It also identifies that, from the 42 newly-formed ICBs, 14 chairs are women and only five are from a black and minority ethnic (BAME) background.

They have found evidence of a "sufficient pool of diverse candidates available for these roles," but said potential candidates consider these NHS positions to be unattractive, unattainable and unfulfilling.

Diversity was also found to be hampered due to the rigid candidate criteria, unrealistic expectations in terms of time commitment and the time constraint imposed on the search period by individual organisations.

Going forward, the interim report recommends to the board that the process for selection and recruitment of members should be "critically reviewed to ensure an improved access and support for under-represented groups".

It also suggests that as part of the review, there should be a mapping of protected characteristics of their current board members, so they "don't make any false assumptions about the current board".

If these outlined recommendations are approved at the ICB board meeting in September, a more detailed paper on the process for delivery will be provided at the subsequent meeting in November.