White doctors are still over-represented in top NHS jobs, study finds

The NHS favours white candidates when hiring for its most prestigious and highly paid positions, researchers have found.

The study, published in the online journal BMJ Open,1 found that 46% of white doctors were consultants, compared with 33.4% of Chinese doctors and 30.6% of black doctors. This was despite a much larger proportion of Chinese people employed by the NHS being doctors than white employees.

The researchers also found similar results among nurses and health visitors, as white people were over-represented in the higher pay bands of these professions.

The results were based on data from NHS Digital’s 2017 workforce statistics on NHS hospital and community health service staff groups working in trusts …