NHS race equality expert says BME staff are still not being listened to

The author of a landmark report into discrimination in the NHS said today that the voices of black and minority ethnic (BME) staff are still not being heard by senior managers in the NHS.

Roger Kline, who published his Snowy White Peaks of the NHS report last year, told delegates at a conference in Birmingham that NHS trust boards need to take more action to tackle race discrimination.

He was speaking at the annual conference of the BME advisory group to England’s chief nursing officer Jane Cummings. 

Mr Kline said: ‘In any other problems the NHS encounters we look at data, listen to staff, talk to patients and relatives and look for evidence and take action but we do not do this with race discrimination.

‘The BME voice is not heard by boards and chief executives and boards have got to deal with this.

‘It is not an optional extra, it is part of the solution to the challenges the NHS faces.’

Mr Kline acknowledged these were not easy conversations to have ‘because the evidence is often that raising concerns is not a good career move’ and urged senior managers to support their staff to speak up.

NHS England introduced a workforce race equality standard in April against which NHS organisations are judged on how well BME staff are treated compared with non-BME employees.