Nursing in a Multi-Ethnic NHS

Approximately 8% of NHS nursing and midwifery staff are from ethnic minority groups. This major study of their careers found large gaps between equal opportunity policies on the one hand, and actual practices on the other. Drawing conclusions from both a qualitative and quantitative study of over 14,000 staff, the book shows that many ethnic minority and white nurses feel that the allocation of training and promotion opportunities was unfair. Racial harassment of ethnic minority nursing staff by patients and colleagues was widespread. Nurses id not think that the management was doing enough to tackle the problem of racial harassment and they were forced to accept it as part of the job'. Some groups of ethnic minority nurses, in particular black nurses, has not advanced as far up the grading structure as their white colleagues, even after controlling for other career factors such as qualifications an length of time in the profession. The authors conclude that significant gaps between written policies and nurses' experiences nee to be addressed, and the policy implications are discusses.