Nursing staff reports of racism at work have greatly increased, the Royal College of Nursing complains. The RCN made Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to NHS trusts and health boards, as released during the RCN’s annual congress between May 18 and 21 in Liverpool.
The RCN is calling on NHS trusts and health boards to develop far more comprehensive protocols on what action to take upon receiving reports of racial abuse. From October, under the Employment Rights Act 2025, NHS trusts will be liable for harassment of their own staff by patients or their families, unless they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent it
RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Prof Nicola Ranger said: โThese findings show a catastrophic rise in the racist abuse faced by nursing staff. It is a disgrace, and perhaps just as bad is the fact that many NHS trusts and health boards cannot even tell us how many staff have been on the receiving end. It amounts to a policy of โdonโt know, donโt careโ.
โNursing staff are the lifeblood of our NHS and social care too, made up of every nationality and ethnicity, coming together to care for patients every day. They are a shining example of a successful, multicultural modern United Kingdom, and they deserve better than for this disgusting racism and abuse to flourish and become so normalised.โ
The RCN added that the reality is far worse than the FOI figures. Dozens of trusts and health boards that did respond had no reportable data on racist incidents, while others shared implausibly low figures or rejected the request outright, the union added. See also the 2025 NHS Staff Survey responded to by 760,000 people or roughly half of the people working in the NHS in autumn 2025. Meanwhile Nicola Ranger spoke of a ‘crisis in social care’ and the nursing workforce ‘depleted and exhausted’.
More on violence reduction in the NHS in the July 2026 edition of Professional Security Magazine.
