Black Country NHS Trust 'refines' staff risk assessments to include ethnicity
An NHS trust has launched new risk assessments for health workers from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
It comes as the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately impacted health workers from BAME backgrounds, according to research.
All staff are routinely given risk assessments at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, which runs Sandwell General, in West Bromwich, and City Hospital, Birmingham.
But the process has been refined to now include "ethnicity" in the risk assessment criteria, said the trust's chief executive, Toby Lewis.
Other assessment criteria is based on their age, gender and any underlying health conditions that they may have.
Those found at a higher risk of Covid-19 can be transferred to "low risk" environments and equipped with "enhanced" personal protective equipment (PPE).
Mr Lewis said: "Our aim is to keep staff safe and support colleagues in managing any anxieties. We have always had a risk assessment process where individuals are assessed.
"We have now refined that, with learning from the risk factors of the disease, including ethnicity, and offered that to anyone who feels they are at higher risk of Covid-19.
"This risk assessment is done with an occupational health clinician. This assesses individual risk factors associated with age, gender, ethnicity and underlying health conditions.
"Depending on the level of risk we will determine the way forward for each colleague, that can include moving to a low risk clinical environment, and wearing enhanced PPE.”
The British Medical Association - the UK's trade union for doctors - says it has seen a "disproportionate numbers of BAME doctors and other healthcare workers die from Covid-19."
Research shows that 63 per cent of deaths of health workers in the UK are made up of people from BAME backgrounds - while they represent 21 per cent of the industry.
Dr Stephen Millar, BMA West Midlands regional council chair, said: "The BMA has called on the NHS to introduce an effective system of risk assessment for all doctors during the Covid-19 pandemic, including those from a BAME background, and ensure that all staff can work in a way that minimises risk to themselves and patients.
"It’s promising to hear that this is being done in some areas of the country, but is imperative that these risk assessments are widespread and actively encouraged by Government, so that every doctor, regardless of where they’re based, is safe and properly protected as they continue the fight against this awful virus.
"The BMA has made clear that individual risk assessments for staff are separate to, and do not replace the need for, risk assessment of the workplace, and it is vital that these assessments take account of any appropriate mitigation for Covid-19 risks, including the use of social distancing and PPE."
