Workforce issues
(discrimination, abuse, harassment, etc) safely and with confidence.11 There is also a support group called ‘Equality
4 Black Nurses’, an organisation that commits itself to empowering Black nurses to stand up against racism within the health service. As outlined on their website: “Our aim is to bring about positive change
by lobbying employers and Government to reduce and eradicate racial discrimination in the healthcare sector. Our nurse-led organisation (…) has been developed in light of the George Floyd incident, the Black Lives Matter movement, COVID-19 and the way it disproportionately and adversely affects Black healthcare staff in the UK due to racism and discrimination in the workplace.”12 The website has its own blog, online forum, and a weekly Zoom meeting for nurses every Tuesday at 9pm. The blog page, in particular, is very useful as it explores a range of issues Black nurses commonly face in their field of work, and includes testimonies from Black healthcare workers who have experienced varying forms of racial inequality or abuse. Overall, this support group is invaluable for Black nurses seeking additional peer support and consolation. Beyond simply gathering testimonies
from the interviewees who have experienced racism while working for the NHS, a couple of them also presented to me their personal thoughts on dealing with and overcoming this discrimination in the workplace. One of them (the dermatologist) offers a suggestion: “If you don’t (want to) say what you experience, you can talk about your experience without actually accusing anyone of anything; you can just say how you feel. If people say how they feel rather than try to hide how they feel, I think people of minority backgrounds can make a difference.” Separately, the other consultant,
aforementioned in this article, expresses and supports the choice to speak up, but she also highlights the inaction which is so often the case regarding such incidents: “There’s a part of me that wants to say ‘make your voice heard, raise your concerns, escalate it to the appropriate people’, but then having seen very little action and very little movement in any of this over twenty years of training, another part of me is like ‘should I just put my head down and get on with the work?’” Ultimately, racism within the NHS is clearly an on-going issue that is yet to be properly resolved. While notable progress has been made to diminish the inequality between BAME healthcare workers and their White British counterparts, research proves that racism not only continues to play a key factor in the form of unfair treatment and career progression,
22
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I August 2023
6. Tonkin, T, Racism an issue in NHS, finds survey, BMA, February 2022, accessed at: https://www.
bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/racism-an- issue-in-nhs-finds-survey
7. Mcllory, R, and Maynard, E, Employment Survey 2021: Workforce diversity and employment experiences, RCN, June 2022. Accessed at:
https://www.rcn.org.uk/Professional- Development/publications/employment- survey-report-2021-uk-pub-010-216
8. General Medical Council, Tackling disadvantage in medical education; analysis of postgraduate outcomes by ethnicity and the interplay with other personal characteristics. Accessed at:
https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/ documents/96887270_tackling-disadvantage- in-medical-education-020323.pdf
but also has a detrimental effect on the mental and physical wellbeing on workers from BAME backgrounds. Beyond that, it is also clear that such disparity between workers contributes to the shortfall of staff, increasing the strain on healthcare services. For any of this to change, the NHS needs to prioritise the safeguarding of its workforce; a thorough investigation and on-going commitment to tackling racism in its many forms (unconscious bias, bullying and abuse, disproportionate allocation of work) must be sustained to ensure that this inequality isn’t allowed to propagate. In the meantime, it is important for nurses and doctors of ethnic minorities to support and empower one another to stand against the injustice many of them face in their professional working lives.
CSJ
References 1. Healthcare workers from ethnic minorities felt unsafe during the pandemic, The NIHR, December 2022. Accessed at: https://evidence.
nihr.ac.uk/alert/healthcare-workers-from- ethnic-minorities-felt-unsafe-during-the- pandemic/
2. Jones-Berry, S, COVID-19: PPE Harder to access for BAME nurses, Nursing Standard, May 2020. Accessed at:
https://rcni.com/nursing- standard/newsroom/news/covid-19-ppe- harder-to-access-bame-nurses-161386
3. Second Personal Protective Equipment Survey of UK Nursing Staff Report: Use and availability of PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic, RCN, May 2020. Accessed at:
https://www.rcn.org.uk/ Professional-Development/publications/rcn- second-ppe-survey-covid-19-pub009269
4. Racism in Medicine, BMA, June 2022. Accessed at:
https://www.bma.org.uk/media/5746/ bma-racism-in-medicine-survey-report-15- june-2022.pdf
5. Ibid. Joshua Correia
Joshua Correia is a freelance journalist and blogger, with a passion for writing on topical healthcare issues, racism and diversity, travel, theatre and literature. He has experience of copywriting and editorial roles within leading publishers and agencies, including Welbeck Publishing Group, The Celebration Travel Group, and The Design Bunker.
9. Reynolds, C, and L’Esperance, V, Tackling race inequality in the medical workforce, BMJ, February 2023. Accessed at:
https://www.bmj. com/content/380/bmj.p149
10. NHS Employers, Access resources to tackle racism and discrimination, June 2021. Accessed at:
https://www.nhsemployers.org/news/ access-resources-tackle-racism-and- discrimination
11. Dame Ruth May, et al, Combatting racial discrimination against minority ethnic nurses, midwives and associates, November 2022. Accessed at:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/ long-read/combatting-racial-discrimination- against-minority-ethnic-nurses-midwives-and- nursing-associates/
12. Accessed at: https://www.
equality4blacknurses.com.
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