Acting against racism for a healthier, more equal, world

In February 2020, The BMJ highlighted the racial discrimination and health inequalities experienced by both patients and doctors in a special ‘Racism in medicine‘ campaigning issue. Its huge success contributed to the launch of the NHS – Race and Health Observatory in May 2021.

Guest-edited by Victor Adebowale, chair, NHS Confederation, and Mala Rao, professor, Imperial College London and Medical Adviser to NHS England on Workforce Race Equality, our award winning issue was the first journal publication solely focused on calling for action against racism in medicine.

• Prompted the NHS to announce the creation of the Health and Race Observatory 
• Exposed the lack of data on ethnic health inequalities
• Won the PPA Diversity and Inclusion Award 2021
• Led the University of Nottingham’s Medical Society to reverse a policy not to allow a representative from an ethnic minority group to sit on its committee
• Claimed that harassment of ethnic minority students was not being monitored. This led to the BMA launching a charter calling on medical schools to end this abuse

It has been over five years since the publication of a special issue of The BMJ dedicated to Racism in Medicine. The 2020 themed issue launched wider coverage in the journal of the issues that affect patients and doctors from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The landscape has certainly changed. We’ve had the covid-19 pandemic, a surge in the Black Lives Matter movement, and the race riots in England.

But are NHS organisations and regulators responding better to the discrimination and differential attainment experienced by doctors from ethnic minority backgrounds and are ethnic health inequalities narrowing?

These are some of the questions we wanted to answer in a series of articles we commissioned to mark the 5th anniversary of The BMJ’s special issue.

Editorial

• Measuring race equality in the NHS workforce
  A perception of endemic discrimination persists, write Aneez Esmail and Sam Everington

Head to head

• Has racism in medicine improved since 2020?
  Five years on from The BMJ’s special issue on racism in medicine—and after a global pandemic—has anything improved in the NHS and UK medicine? Mala Rao sees shoots of hope, but Victor Adebowale argues that any progress still has a long way to go

News

• Racism in medical schools: are things improving?
  Five years ago a BMJ investigation found that medical students were being let down by poor monitoring and responses to complaints of racism. Gareth Iacobucci repeated the exercise to see whether any progress has been made

Opinion

• Together we can challenge the racism that persists in healthcare
  Four years on from the founding of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, Habib Naqvi looks back on the progress made and warns us not to be complacent

• Partha Kar: NHS leaders must be honest about failures to confront racism in the workforce
  Change is seriously needed, as is leadership with the mettle to confront this heinous generational problem, writes Partha Kar

Careers

• Tackling inequality through data: the professor of primary care
  Professor of primary care and public health Azeem Majeed talks to Carla Delgado about his passion for tackling health inequalities through data

• As a black doctor, am I more likely to be referred to the GMC by my employer?
  A referral is statistically more likely, so work must continue to improve things, Abi Rimmer hears