A quarter of junior doctors have been victims of race hate at work, with the majority abused by their patients, an MDDUS survey has uncovered.
MDDUS found that of that number, more than half said they had not felt adequately supported by senior managers when they reported racist abuse.
One-in-five junior doctors said experiencing personal racism at work meant they had considered quitting medicine altogether.
MDDUS conducted a survey of its medical members across the UK aged between 24 and 34 years old.
It found that found that 24 per cent had experienced racism at work. Of those, more than three quarters (77 per cent) said it was a patient who racially abused them.
More than half (54 per cent) of junior doctors surveyed said they’d witnessed a colleague being racially abused at work.
While nearly one-in-five (18 per cent) said the racism they had experienced at work had made them consider leaving the medical profession altogether.
Dr John Holden, chief medical officer at MDDUS, said: “Doctors from a minority ethnic background and those who qualified overseas and are registered to practice here in the UK are part of the backbone of the NHS.
“Their focus is their patients, and they do not deserve to be distracted from this by hateful racist attacks.
“Our findings highlight the debilitating impact on young doctors who experience racism at work. It is very distressing to hear about how badly it affects them both personally and professionally.
“They also spell out the impact racism has on staff retention and wellbeing at a time when the NHS is under pressure and needs to do everything it can to keep colleague morale high.
“Junior doctors need the full support of their Trust to call out incidents of racism in the workplace, and the confidence of knowing they will be dealt with in an open and transparent way.”
MDDUS also used Freedom of Information requests to investigate the extent of hate crimes reported to the police as having happened in a healthcare setting.
It found that these incidents are reported to forces more than twice daily on average, with the vast majority happening in hospitals.
Researchers from MDDUS asked all 45 police forces in the UK to release information about the number and type of hate crimes reported to them as occurring in hospitals, GP practices or other healthcare settings.
The FOI responses received showed that 875 hate crimes were recorded as occurring in a healthcare setting. The vast majority (94 per cent) were reported to the police after incidents in hospitals.
Of the total, 86 per cent of incidents were reported to the police as race hate.
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