British Medical Association urges Javid to tackle 'structural racism' in NHS

British Medical Association on Thursday (1) has urged England’s newly-appointed health secretary Sajid Javid to tackle racism within the healthcare sector, claiming that the government commission report had “ignored well-documented” evidence of structural racism in NHS and failed to give a true picture of the barriers faced by ethnic minority health workers.

Claiming that the government-appointed commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) report- which underplays the role of structural racism- is misleading, the BMA is now urging the government to begin to tackle structural racism within the health service “so that the values of fairness and equity we ascribe to patient care applies equally to those that work within the NHS”.

“We hope that Sajid Javid, the first health secretary from an ethnic minority background in Westminister, will press forward in making the changes needed to address the structural racism within the healthcare sector,” The Independent quoted BMA chair of council Dr Chaand Nagpaul.

Accusing that the commission made “sweeping statements of success” in its March report and ignored the “evidences of racism”, Nagpaul said that it is hard to understand how the CRED race report failed to see “structural racism” faced by ethnic minority doctors in the NHS while also ignoring “documentation of racism occurring at a systemic level”, which is enormous and not addressed.

“The way in which the authors chose to analyse the data and evidence submitted to the commission questions the validity of the entire report,” Nagpaul said.

As per the BMA survey evidence submitted to the commission, 16.7 per cent of ethnic minority staff compared to 6.2 per cent of white staff reported experiencing discrimination at work for a manager, team leader or other colleague. 

BMA Council member Dr Radhakrishna Shanbhag said that racism should not be accepted as “an occupational hazard for the NHS’ ethnic minority staff” as she recalled how a patient asked her if the operation could be done by a white doctor, after which the surgery was rescheduled. 

In another incident, when Dr Zeshan Qureshi, a paediatric registrar, attempted to report a colleague for referring to Nigerian nurses as being “uncivilised”, his complaint was not taken seriously even when he followed the protocol.

Meanwhile, another recent report from Royal College of Physicians also stated that black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds have been hindered in their search for senior job positions within the NHS because of widespread racial discrimination.