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Trust chief executive reveals racism towards staff following Brexit result

Dame Julie Moore described the situation at her NHS trust post-Brexit to a House of Lords select committee.
Dame Julie Moore

A nurse chief executive of a leading NHS trust has spoken out about the racist abuse her staff have received from patients following the EU referendum result.

Dame Julie Moore
Nurse chief excutive Dame Julie Moore gave evidence about
racist abuse against staff. Picture: Barney Newman

Dame Julie Moore, who has been chief executive of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust for the past decade, made the comments during her oral evidence to the House of Lords committee on the long-term sustainability of the NHS this week.

The committee is investigating what changes are needed across the NHS to enable it to meet challenges over the next 20 years.

Dame Julie also revealed some EU staff at the trust were looking at leaving.

Shockwaves through staff

An uncorrected parliamentary transcript of the proceedings shows she said the trust had nursing vacancies at around 6% and added that Brexit had sent ‘a bit of a shockwave’ through some of the staff they would have traditionally recruited.

‘In fact, I have had some staff from the EU, southern Ireland, looking to go back,' she said.

‘Of great concern to me are some of the incidents of racist abuse that my staff have suffered from patients following Brexit. If we wish to attract international staff over here, we are going to have think very carefully about the messages that we give and how we treat our staff.

‘It is not just that we want to use them as a workforce; I think the exchange of knowledge and research are important to our NHS.

‘We have benefited as a country greatly from international collaborations and I would hate to see that lost in all of this. At the moment, I would say that we do not have enough nurses, doctors, clinical professionals, managers—anybody, at the moment—and I am not confident that we are training enough to meet that demand.’

A Trades Union Congress report – published in August – warned that unions, employers and the government must redouble efforts to tackle the increase in racism following the vote to leave the EU.


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