The ethical case for going further

We all have a role to play, as human beings, in ensuring that we treat people in the right way at work, and in making organisational change real where we can see that things are unethical or unfair.

This is all the more important in the healthcare sector, as one of the UK's largest and most impactful industries - the NHS, for example, is the UK's largest employer. Every single individual in healthcare ensuring that they work according to the ethical principles of doing no harm and treating all people fairly adds up to a large and extremely impactful group.

Nursing and midwifery are ethics-driven professions, with roots in social justice and community health advocacy. To this day, duty of care and ethical values are a fundamental part of nursing, which each individual nurse must strive to uphold. Given the nature of the work, nurses, midwives and nursing associates tend to be very ethically minded. We have an opportunity to take that spirit further when it comes to advancing race equity.

What are the ethical reasons why we need to further advance race equity?

The healthcare sector has a huge role to play in addressing structural racism in the UK, which is an ethical imperative.

Eliminating institutional racism within nursing and midwifery would be a step towards eradicating racism in health and social care, and eradicating racism in health and social care would be a step towards eradicating the structural racism in the UK overall, because our healthcare system represents a large pillar of public life.

Ethical behaviour and decision-making are part of one's professional duty.

The ability to make ethical choices is increasingly a fundamental part of doing one's job well in today's society.¹ Barack Obama's Presidential Commission on Bioethics pointed to this, advocating for the idea that 'To fulfil our professional obligations, we must resolve dilemmas, understand the obligations of our professions and attend to the broader social impacts of our work.'²

Nursing and midwifery professionals have an ethical obligation to fight racism and discrimination.

Employee handbooks state that health and social care workers owe a duty of care to patients, colleagues, employers and the public interest. The NMC Code also states that nurses are expected to 'care about good nursing.'³ Campaigns such as the 'Anti-racism in nursing practice - our professional duty to act' media campaign further highlight this duty.⁴ For more about nursing and midwifery professionals' ethical obligation to fight racism and discrimination, please see the resource for combatting racial discrimination against minority ethnic nurses, midwives and nursing associates which was co-produced by the NMC, NHS Confederation and NHS England.

Our profession is fundamentally ethically-minded.

Many of us entered into nursing and midwifery because we wanted to care for people, and because our ethics align with the idea of helping people. There is perhaps no greater industry to lead the way in advancing race equity, as the vast majority of people in our field are motivated to improve lives and society through the care we provide. Not all industries have such an advantage built in, and it is a strength that can be capitalised on to further advance race equity.

Our healthcare system is full of people who have a huge sense of responsibility and commitment to ethical ways of working.

There is a clear ethical case for going further.