As a black nurse, I see the crushing racial inequality across the NHS. This has to stop

As a black nurse, I see the crushing racial inequality across the NHS. This has to stop | Donna Kinnair Black doctors and nurses are paid far less than their white colleagues. The NHS must address the barriers and prejudices in its system

Some years ago a fellow black nurse said to me that I had been described by a nursing leader as “the only acceptable black nurse”.

I’d like to say we’ve come a long way since then, but the enormous ethnic pay gap in the NHS shows there’s a long road yet to travel. As revealed last week, black doctors and nurses are on average paid thousands of pounds less than their white colleagues. There are still those who divide our workforce between “acceptable” and “unacceptable”. The Guardian