‘Clear consequences’ for leaders who fail to tackle racism

Board members will be held accountable for tackling workplace racism via personal objectives that must be made public under new national standards.

The government’s NHS staff standards guidance, published this week, says organisations must “ensure every board member (including non-executive directors) has a published… objective on tackling racism”.

They must appoint either their chief executive or chief operating officer as the senior responsible officer for tackling racism, and they will be “held to account against relevant workforce data [with] strong and clear consequences for poor performance”.

“Tackling racism” is one of six staff standards set by the Department of Health and Social Care, as proposed in last year’s 10-Year Health Plan.

The guidance said: “The 2025 NHS Staff Survey showed that instances of staff experiencing discrimination at work from patients, their families and the general public, managers or other colleagues, had increased again and are higher among ethnic minority staff compared to white staff.

“Given these inequalities, this standard sets out the minimum national expectations for how all NHS organisations must prioritise, prevent, respond to and learn from incidents of racism in the workplace.”

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Source: HSJ, 8 July 2026