Tackling racism is not an optional extra: a call for a national NHS response

Two weeks ago, in response to an assault on a Filipino nurse in Halifax I suggested that the NHS needs to take the following steps.  The events since have made this even more of a priority. And it must start with national leaders. It cannot just be left to local staff and managers to respond.

This is what I suggested. You might want to share it and raise the suggestions in every part of the NHS you work in

So what must happen? Here are ten essential steps:

• Secretary of State Wes Streeting needs to repeat his message of last August 2024 and tell NHS England tackling racism is not an optional extra but a top priority, He said then that “People who are abusing NHS staff can be turned away, and should be turned away, if that is the way that they are treating our staff”

• NHS England (Jim Mackey and Penny Dash) should reissue the helpful guidance issued by their predecessors to every Board last August and instruct every NHS Board to ensure every single member of staff sees it. Last time many managers and staff were not even aware of the guidance. https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-response-to-2024-riots/

• Every single NHS Trust Board needs to be proactive and ensure every single member of staff of BME heritage has a check in with managers to ensure they are safe at work, on their way to work, and at home and respond accordingly. They need to make sure every member of staff – and contractors - are clear that race discrimination will be treated as gross misconduct

• Every HR team in every NHS organisation needs to ensure Board instructions are acted on – but this is not just an issue to be dumped on HR. All senior leaders must ensure their teams prioritise this.

• Every Chief Nurse, Chief Medical Officer and Chief AHP must take personal responsibility to lead on this issue, ensuring in particular that staff at risk of abuse are given full support including if patients are racially abusive.

• Every trade union needs to ensure that every NHS organisation is acting on this issue and every local representative knew what their employers have been told to do– that was certainly not the case last time

• Every professional regulator needs give leadership and ensure any registrants who are racially abusive are removed from practice – they could start with the thug who attacked Apple claimed to be an SRN.

• Any Board member who fails to act on such a moral imperative is surely a candidate for the Fit and Proper Persons Framework.

• Above all, every member of NHS staff and every potential patient (that is all of us) needs to be supported to intervene when racism of any kind occurs or seems likely. It cannot be left to those suffering detriment to be left to respond to it.

The current events should prompt us to tackle the deep-seated race discrimination in the NHS that we have signally failed to do.  Doing so is not an “optional extra” as I pointed out earlier this year https://www.rogerkline.co.uk/post/not-an-optional-extra-the-price-of-not-tackling-race-discrimination-in-the-nhs

This is not just about looking after individual NHS staff though it should involve us all as active bystanders. It is about the future of the NHS. Should significant numbers of BME staff and potential recruits decide this country is not safe for them we will all be in an almighty mess. We are nearly there but we need not be.