“Racial discrimination” against doctors from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds in the NHS have impacted their career progression.
A latest report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has found that BAME doctors are consistently disadvantaged when applying for jobs owing to ingrained “bias” in the NHS. Thus, making it much harder for BAME doctors to succeed through consultant interviews in comparison with their white counterparts. The RCP analysed data from 8 years’ worth of annual surveys reporting on the experiences of, and outcomes for, clinicians within a year of completing their medical certificate of completion of training (CCT).
The RCP which represents 30,000 doctors across the UK found that CCT holders of white ethnicity appeared to apply for fewer posts but were more likely to be shortlisted and to be offered a post. This year’s survey results show that this is still the case, with 61% respondents of white ethnicity far more likely to be shortlisted for an interview and offered a post despite applying for fewer posts than their BAME counterpart. In the meantime, white respondents had a 98% chance of being shortlisted after their first application, compared with 91% of BAME respondents. This gap widened even further when it came to the likelihood of being offered a post the first-time round: 29% of white respondents were offered a post after being shortlisted for the first time, compared with just 12% of BAME respondents.
In a statement, Professor Mala Rao OBE, medical adviser for the Workforce Race Equality Strategy Implementation Team said, “The RCP should be commended for highlighting the persistence of ethnic variation in the rate of success in securing a consultant post, in each of the past 8 years. Its 2018 data did indeed inspire the Medical Workforce Race Equality Standard (MWRES) steering group to include this analysis in its indicator set and other medical royal colleges to begin to examine their own data.
“The RCP’s firm stance against racism and its determination to understand how differential attainment affects its BAME members in their career progression are hugely welcome, as this encourages the whole of the medical workforce to come together to share learning and address race inequalities across the specialties”.
