Recommendation 26

We asked about the experience of BAME staff and whether this had been different to that of their white colleagues. The British Medical Association told us that its surveys showed between two and three times as many BAME doctors as white doctors felt pressured to work without adequate protection. It also told us that it called for BAME staff to be given risk assessments in early April, when it became clear that COVID-19 was having a disproportionately high impact on staff from BAME backgrounds. But information from its members suggested that risk assessments were not being carried out until the end of May. The Department said that, since the initial PPE shortages, it had worked hard to listen to the concerns of BAME colleagues and ensure that all staff have a risk assessment. It also explained that it had a respirator mask fit-testing project and worked hard to ensure it could provide PPE in a range of sizes, so that everybody could get the PPE they needed.44