Minority Ethnic Voices in Healthcare Professions: Strategies for Career Empowerment and Creating Inclusive Settings

Discussions around racism in healthcare often lead nowhere and decentre the people that it impacts the most. This book provides a voice for those who are spoken about, but rarely given the platform to share their perspectives, realities, and solutions as minority ethnic healthcare workers.

Filled with powerful and illuminating case studies and interviews, readers are shown a range of minority ethnic perspectives on every rung of the career ladder, from healthcare assistants to CEOs. Dirty politics, discrimination, and barriers to career progression are all discussed within the context of working within a system that has yet to confront its underlying prejudices.

Beyond discussing these realities, this book also offers insightful solutions and strategies, not only for minority ethnic staff looking to support their own development, but also for healthcare management and policy makers who are serious about dismantling discriminatory practices. Heena Mahmood offers a thoughtful examination on what can practically be done to foster a more inclusive and equitable environment for healthcare workers and patients.

Heena Mahmood worked as a Physiotherapist in the NHS before embarking on a career change into Digital Project Management. Heena led the development of the first BAME network of a large NHS organisation of 8000 people, alongside being an active member of West Yorkshire’s award-winning regional race equality network. She is the former Digital Lead for Community Services, and continues to clinically practice as a Senior Specialist Physiotherapist in the NHS. She lives in Leeds.