Bedfordshire maternity staff faced racism from colleagues – CQC

Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said: “We were concerned to find low staffing for midwives was still a significant risk to the safety of women using these services and their babies despite us telling the trust they needed to address this previously.”

He said the trust had recruited midwives from abroad to help tackle this but this was “being undermined by racism against staff, by their own colleagues, and a lack of support from leaders”.

He continued: “Some international midwives told us they often felt excluded, and that it was normalised for colleagues from ethnic minorities to experience discrimination from colleagues”.

In the trust’s 2022 staff survey, a third of all midwives reported experiencing at least one incident of bullying or harassment from colleagues, Mr Dunn said.