HT Allan, JA Larsen, K Bryan, PA Smith
In an increasingly competitive global labour market, more countries with nursing shortages are recruiting from abroad. The UK is no exception. However, little research has been conducted into the experiences of racism and discrimination among internationally recruited nurses in the UK. The empirical data in this paper contribute to understanding how immigrant workers from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds experience working in British health services and provide empirically grounded accounts of individual and institutional racism. A total of 67 internationally recruited nurses (IRNs) participated in 11 focus group interviews which were held at three sites in the UK: Leeds, Cardiff and London. These focus groups were audio-taped and analysed using NVivo, version 1.3. In focus groups, IRNs described discrimination and racism as central to their experiences as IRNs working in the UK. This study demonstrates the ways in which racism and institutional racism work in healthcare practice from the perspective of IRNs and how they cope with these negative experiences. The data suggest that racism and institutional racism are understood in more complex ways than previously reported and that institutional racism may be reproduced through negative stereotypes of foreigners and professional hierarchies which are forms of structured social relations. These structured social relations are reproduced in complex professional relationships and hierarchies, in the meaning of ethnicity and stereotypes for individuals and the relationship between racist attitudes and racist behaviours. Based on these findings, we argue that racism and institutional racism are reproduced through personal and interpersonal as well as structured social relationships, and provide working examples of the concept of institutional racism in practice. We discuss the implications of the findings for equal opportunities policies in the health services.
