Reverse mentoring for senior NHS leaders: a new type of relationship

Purpose: The Reverse Mentoring for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ReMEDI) programme was rolled out in Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in 2018 and paired senior white leaders (mentees) with black and minority ethnic (BME) staff (mentors) to help them explore their mentees' practices in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Background: The authors, two BME staff, participated in the first cohort of the programme. We reverse mentored a senior white male director, who we met six times over a 6-month period.

Methods: We used a variety of methods to gain information about and to appraise our mentee, including one-to-one interviews, observations of his team meetings and visual inspections of his department.

Main findings: We noted a number of positive practices in our mentee's various levels of operation, which we classified as individual, departmental, organisational and symbolic. These findings included the use of gender inclusive language and compliance with BME staff targets.

Conclusions: This exercise was very useful to our mentee, however, more time with our mentee would have provided greater insight. It would also be helpful to obtain feedback from our mentee's BME staff, to provide a 360-degree view and complete appraisal of his performance.