Why the ethnicity census is so important, and what you can do to help

 

Council member, Dr Edwin Borman, Chair of the GMC’s Committee on Diversity and Equality and Chair of the BMA’s International Committee explains…

 

 

“You may soon have the chance to help the GMC in its work to eliminate unfair discrimination.

We are committed to ensuring our processes and procedures are fair, objective, transparent and free from unlawful discrimination.

We will soon be carrying out the first comprehensive exercise aimed at consolidating diversity data for the medical profession, and your help is needed to make it a success.

If we do not have access to current ethnicity data for you, we will be sending you a form to complete this autumn. I would urge you to look out for it.

While I know that you will have completed such forms many times in your career, no single organisation holds the kind of data we’ll be asking for. So currently it’s not possible to provide with accuracy even the most basic diversity data on doctors practising in the UK.

That’s a loss for all of us, because concerns about unfair discrimination have dogged the medical profession for far too long.

The GMC is committed to doing all it can to ensure that not only is unfair discrimination definitively buried, it is seen to be definitively buried. That’s why we will be asking you for ethnicity data.

Once we hold this information, we will be able to deal with the concern that, as a group, doctors who have qualified abroad are disproportionately subject to Fitness to Practise procedures, and are more likely to be referred to the GMC by public bodies, such as their employer.

We are also keen for the GMC, as a leading regulator, to set an example.

The medical profession is well placed within UK society to demonstrate that multiculturalism works. We’re all comfortable with working with colleagues from all parts of the world, providing the best possible care for patients, whatever their background.

This data-consolidation process will provide an opportunity for the medical profession to show how good it is at recognising the importance of these issues.

I’d like to assure you too that the GMC will hold your data in a manner that is robust, confidential, and has been recognised as such at ISO 27001 level. So, if we approach you, please do fill in your form, and send it to the GMC, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

With your help, this really important, yet near impossible task becomes do-able."