Average white medical consultants’ pay is 4.9% higher than for consultants from a Black and minority ethnic background. Reference
White job applicants in the NHS are more than 1.61 times more likely to be appointed from shortlisting compared to Black and minority ethnic applicants. Reference
Across NHS trust boards in England, 10% of members are from a Black and minority ethnic background. Reference
The Observatory will take a holistic view of the healthcare architecture and policy levers that determine the experiences of service users and the workforce. Racial inequalities are ingrained in the institutions that constitute the NHS, and in the systems that determine how people interact with it. The NHS is a complex network of providers, commissioners, regulators and various other umbrella bodies. Only by reviewing how these systems function and interact with one another, can we hope to identify and eradicate the causes of racial inequality. We will begin this process by commissioning a review into the system as it is now, taking account of the many restructures we have seen in the past and examining the government’s latest white paper on health and social care reform.
We will also soon begin to provide more targeted intervention. The NHS has recently announced the need for all NHS organisations to have in place a named executive Board member responsible for tackling inequalities. The Observatory will soon be commissioning new research to better understand how these new health inequalities board leads are thinking about their responsibilities, what they see as the enablers and constraints on them having impact, and what they think might help.