Study shows no progress in past decade for BME nursing directors.

Abstract

The number of black and minority ethnic (BME) nursing directors in the NHS has not increased in a decade, according to research published last week. Roger Kline, a research fellow at Middlesex University, said figures he collected from across England showed that 3 per cent of nursing directors were from a BME background, the same level as ten years ago. He also found that the number of BME nurse managers fell from 8.2 per cent in 2003 to 7.8 per cent in 2012. Almost a fifth of the nursing workforce – 19.7 per cent – come from a BME background. The research also found that in London, 17 of the 40 trusts had no BME board members, despite 41 per cent of the workforce being from a BME background. The findings showed that BME staff were three times less likely than their white counterparts to be promoted to senior management roles in London. The research, which includes a literature review, concludes: ‘It is surely time to urgently and decisively address the widespread, deep-rooted, systemic and largely unchanging discrimination that black and minority ethnic staff within the NHS face.’ Mr Kline described his findings as depressing. He said that a lack of BME representation in senior positions damaged the health service in three ways: it creates dissatisfaction among the workforce, which can affect patient care; it leads to a lack of creativity and innovation; and it means that services do not reflect the communities they serve. ‘The impression given is that things have been slowly improving, but this is not the case,’ Mr Kline told Nursing Standard. ‘It is a real challenge and people need to stop saying there is not a problem because there is.’ Mr Kline added that programmes dedicated to developing BME leaders in the NHS, such as Breaking Through, had seen their funding cut, which could partly account for the drop in senior BME nurse managers. ‘These sorts of programmes should not be necessary but it is quite clear they are,’ he said. In January, former NHS chief executive Nigel Crisp, who published a ten-point race equality action plan a decade ago, told Nursing Standard he feared that black representation had diminished since then. A Nursing Standard investigation, published earlier this year, found there was a low proportion of BME nurses in senior positions. In a survey of 50 NHS employers, 33 said fewer than 5 per cent of their band 7 nurses had BME backgrounds. In 19 organisations, there were no BME nurses at band 8.