Racial discrimination claims made after BME staff pay revealed

A large study of earnings by ethnicity has found that black doctors in the NHS are paid on average almost £10,000 a year less than their white counterparts.

Alarmingly, black female doctors earn £9,612 a year less and black male doctors £9,492 a year less than white ones. The same study, based on analysis of 750,000 staff salaries in the NHS in England, also revealed that black nurses are currently earning £2,700 less than their white counterparts, prompting claims of racial discrimination within the health system.

Across all job types within the NHS, it has been revealed that black men earn £5,796 less than white peers and £7,272 less than the average male pay.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the chair of the British Medical Association, said: “BME doctors make up more than a third of the medical workforce and play a vital role, day in day out, delivering care to patients across the country. Yet these figures confirm that they, alongside wider NHS staff, continue to face unacceptable barriers, penalties and discrimination in the health service. “It cannot be right that in 21st-century Britain there are such wide gaps in pay between white and BME doctors when, irrespective of their background, they hold positions to deliver the same care to patients.”

Donna Kinnair, the RCN’s acting chief executive, said: “As a black woman who spent a career in NHS nursing, nobody feels stronger about this than me. For the first time these figures show the shocking scale of the challenge we face to ensure BAME staff are represented at every level of our healthcare system. The enormous pay gaps highlighted here reflect the appalling lack of diversity at senior levels in the NHS. BAME staff make up 25 per cent of NHS workforce, yet this dwindles to just seven per cent of senior managers. This lack of diversity means the NHS leadership fails to reflect the population it serves.”