BME access work programme

Equitable Commissioning for a Diverse Society: are we using the right intelligence?
Read the key points from our workshop

The government has promised to ‘personalise’ the NHS of the future, offering patients more choice, an end to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach of the past and more genuinely individual, patient-centred care. This pledge includes providing care that is appropriate to an individual’s cultural, linguistic or religious diversity.

The government is also committed to reducing health inequalities between groups, including inequalities experienced by people from black and minority (BME) ethnic groups.

Although clear differences exist in health status between ethnic groups, it is not known to what extent these differences are caused by failings in health care per se, or by other factors such as racism in society or socio-economic disadvantage.

There is, however, clear evidence that people from minority ethnic backgrounds are less satisfied with the NHS than others. NHS patient surveys reveal, for example, that people from Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups report a poorer experience than people from the White British group. But it is not clear where in the NHS system minority ethnic patients are experiencing unfair or inequitable treatment, what the nature of the unfairness is, which groups are most affected, and the extent to which ethnicity is the issue over and above socio-economic deprivation.

NHS organisations are bound by law to publish Race Equality Schemes to ensure that their services are serving all members of the community, and there are various programmes under way across the NHS to ensure greater fairness in access. However, there is a general lack of evaluation of such projects, as well as gaps in research on the exact nature of problems of access and how services can be improved to reduce some of this disadvantage.

Our work

In February 2006, the King’s Fund launched a programme of work that aims to pull together the evidence base about inequities in access to care experienced by black and minority ethnic groups and, longer term, to analyse the practical efforts by the NHS to improve access to health care for BME groups.

Specific objectives are to:

  • summarise the nature and the scale of inequalities facing BME groups in access to health care
  • identify and audit the range and effectiveness of the solutions being tried across the NHS
  • analyse existing incentives and suggest new ones that could be used to encourage NHS organisations to improve access to care for BME groups
  • suggest how progress might best be monitored.
For more information, contact Ruth Thorlby.

See also