Every Thursday for 10 weeks, millions stood on their doorsteps to cheer healthcare workers. Yet for NHS worker Jean-Michel Tchamba, the impact of the pandemic on BAME staff was neglected: “Apart from a few emails saying thank you to ethnic minorities there was no attention given to racism in the NHS”. In 2017, Tchamba won a claim of racial discrimination against his previous NHS employer, the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust.
openDemocracy can reveal that NHS England has faced 324 employment tribunals for racial discrimination since February 2017, 280 more cases than any other UK employer. Tchamba received the second highest pay-out from the NHS in a race discrimination case during this period.
Black and ethnic minority staff in the NHS are more than twice as likely to face discrimination at work compared to their white colleagues, according to surveys of its workforce. Yet if race discrimination cases reach tribunal, they are notoriously difficult to prove. Tchamba’s claim is one of only 2% that succeed at tribunal hearing.
