Medical Teaching and Learning: Ethnic Diversity

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness put her point well, although the broadband deficiencies meant that I did not get all of it. I emphasise that this area of policy work is very much the focus of the drafting of the People Plan, which will put a spotlight on a number of the areas of our human resources, including BAME people, and we look forward to the publication of that plan.

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab) [V]]

My Lords, while the curricula of medical schools are for them to determine, could the Minister tell the House whether any meetings between the Medical Schools Council and Ministers have taken place recently? Will he ensure that a meeting is arranged in the near future to hear from the medical schools what they are doing, first, to improve the representation of Afro-Caribbean staff and students and, secondly, to ensure that teaching and research properly explore those conditions to which the BAME community is especially susceptible? Black lives really do matter.

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness asks a very specific question; I cannot, I am afraid, answer precisely on what meetings there have been with the medical councils, particularly during the busy Covid period. All I can say is that there is ongoing and regular engagement with the medical schools that focuses very much on the key issues that she describes. Diversity and Inclusion: Our Strategic Framework 2018-2022, from Health Education England, is a very explicit and specific programme of works in which we engage all those in health education. As I mentioned, we are working extremely hard on our recruitment campaigns to ensure that they reach communities otherwise not reached.