Key Summary
- RCN condemns NHS for the rising number of racism incidents against nursing staff.
- An increase of 78 percent in racism attacks occurred over the past four years.
- In 2025 alone, nursing staff reported 6,812 incidents of racial abuse.
A report on racism faced by the nursing staff shows they have increased by 78 percent over the past four years, accounting for 21,000 incidents.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) obtained the data through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, which shows that many NHS trusts and health boards do not keep records, suggesting the true scale of racism may be even higher.
In 2025 alone, nursing staff reported 6,812 incidents of racial abuse, up from 3,652 in 2022. This means a new report of racist abuse being made every 77 minutes somewhere in the NHS.
The union also stressed that under‑reporting is likely, as many nurses feel unable or unsafe to report racist incidents due to workplace culture and fear of repercussions.
This rise can be linked to a decrease in the number of foreign nurses coming to the UK. Between April and September, the number of nurses and midwives from India joining the NMC register fell by 58 percent.
Between 2022 and 2025, calls to the RCN advice line related to racist abuse or discrimination rose by 70 percent, with cases including patients refusing care from Black staff and colleagues making racist remarks based on skin colour or nationality.
The RCN is calling on UK governments and health leaders to introduce standardised, consistent racism‑incident reporting systems across NHS employers to improve monitoring and accountability.
RCN chief executive and general secretary professor Nicola Ranger described the findings as evidence of a “catastrophic rise” in racist abuse towards nurses and criticised trusts and boards that failed to disclose data, calling their approach a “don’t know, don’t care” policy.
From October 2025, under the Employment Rights Act 2025, NHS employers will be legally liable for staff harassment by patients or their families unless they can prove they took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
