Acknowledge your 'unearned white privilege', NHS to medics

DOCTORS and nurses in England’s National Health Service (NHS) are being trained on aspects of structural racism and white privilege, a recent media report claimed.

Medics in Northern Care Alliance, which covers two trusts and nearly 20,000 staff, have recently been offered guidance on “white privilege, structural racism and getting comfortable with the uncomfortable”, the report said.

The guidance, which was on ideas such as safe spaces and sensitivity training, reportedly also listed 13 examples of hidden benefits associated with white people, something as basic as going out and “not being worried that you won’t get into a club because of your skin colour”.

Other white privilege examples mentioned in the guidance programme were “not being constantly asked to discuss racism at work” and being “censored for your views on racism”.

As per a media report on Sunday (25),  at least eight NHS trusts across the country and two NHS organisations have published diversity manuals for thousands of staff on ideas like “white privilege, white fragility and white allyship”.

One hand-out on the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust website, with the NHS Sussex trust logo attached, lists 14 ways of “doing white allyship”, The Telegraph reported. The ways include needing to “notice your biases”, taking “care to correct them”, and acknowledging your “unearned white privileges”.

Another PowerPoint guidance given to NHS staff in the Midlands reportedly mentioned necessary questions one should be asking as a white ally.

The media report follows another weeks-old report that training was being offered in West Yorkshire to make NHS medics learn more about racial injustice and everyday discrimination some of their colleagues and patients have to suffer. The training, said the media reports, featured modules on concepts like "white privilege, unconscious bias and racial microaggression".

Official figures show 21 per cent of staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups were black or from ethnic minority backgrounds last year, compared to 14 per cent share in the UK population. Those in senior manager roles in NHS have increased by 41.7 per cent since 2017.

There is said to be a push by NHS bosses in recent years to tackle racism, with local NHS leaders required to report and monitor figures on ethnic minority inclusion in workplaces.