BAME doctors 'still waiting for risk checks'

Many doctors from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds say key risk assessments have still not taken place, or have not been acted on.

About 40% of UK doctors in the UK are from BAME backgrounds, yet 95% of the medics who have died from coronavirus were from minority backgrounds.

The NHS said last June that its trusts should offer risk assessments to staff, but hundreds told a poll for BBC News that they were still awaiting assessments or action.

Of 2,000 doctors who responded, 328 said their risks hadn't been assessed at all, while 519 said they had had a risk assessment but no action had been taken. Another 658 said some action had been taken, with just 383 reporting their risks had been considered in detail and action put into place to mitigate them.

One of those who responded was Dr Temi Olonisakin, a junior doctor in London who has Type 1 diabetes. She had her risk assessment early on in the pandemic.

"It was as comprehensive as a side A4 paper can be," she says. "I think for a lot of people it felt more like a tick-box exercise, and one that could be used to say: 'We've done what we need to do to make people feel safe' - but I'm not sure in reality that's how people felt."

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Source: BBC News, 26 March 2021