Health officials have “paid lip service” to racism in the NHS for years, leading black, Asian and minority ethnic doctors have warned as they called for “concrete” action to tackle inequalities exposed by a landmark review.
The Guardian revealed how a damning study – the largest of its kind – had found “vast” and “widespread” inequity in every aspect of healthcare it reviewed, and warned that this was harming the health of minority ethnic patients in England.
In response, an NHS spokesperson said the health service was “already taking action” to improve the experiences of patients and access to services and was working “to drive forward” the recommendations made in the report.
However, Dr JS Bamrah, a consultant psychiatrist in Greater Manchester and national chairman of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, said he was unsatisfied with the response.
“This 166-page review … is a terrible indictment of the current state of the NHS,” he told the Guardian. “As many of us have often said and reported, we don’t need any further reports. It’s action we need, as there are scores of patients who are not getting optimal treatment, and many are being neglected.
“It really isn’t good enough for NHS bosses to say that action is being taken and it’s even more disappointing to then not see any concrete proposals on dealing with glaring disparities despite all that we have learnt during the pandemic.”
Dr Rajesh Mohan, presidential lead for race and equality at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said it was “time for warm words to end” as he urged NHS leaders to “do everything they can to ensure patients from ethnic minority backgrounds get the care they need”.
Dr Subramanian Narayanan, president-elect of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, the hospital doctors’ union, said “the blight of institutional racism” was “all too common” in the NHS, adding: “Health leaders have paid lip service to racism for years, but that has got us nowhere.”
The review, commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory and led by the University of Manchester, made a series of recommendations to NHS leaders and organisations. They include, for example, improving ethnicity data collection, investing in racial health inequalities research, fostering better links with community organisations and tackling “racist attitudes and behaviours” among healthcare staff.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association, said: “The findings show that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are being failed within the health service across all age groups and clinical areas. As patients receive poorer care on the basis of race the NHS is failing to honour its core value; to treat everyone equally. This can no longer be ignored – there is a moral duty to put this right as matter of urgency.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “While our latest equality report shows that progress has been made in some areas of the NHS, we are working with the GMC and NHS Employers to ensure that we are addressing these concerns and have appointed senior leaders to take this work forward and monitor progress.
“The NHS has also set out what local health services should be focusing on over the next year so they can also make improvements in their local communities for patients and will work closely with the Race and Health Observatory to drive forward the recommendations set out in this report.”
