**4.3 Number of types of racism at workplace**

As shown in **Table 2**, 308 respondents mentioned various types of racism at workplace which totalled as 607 before the Pandemic and 470 during the Pandemic. This shows that several of respondents reported more than one type of racism. **Table 3** shows the distribution of 308 respondents by number of types of racism experienced before and during the Pandemic separately for Black and Asian groups. Before the Pandemic, a majority of Asians experienced one (53.15%) or two (20.98%) types of racisms whereas among the Black a relatively higher proportion of them experienced three types (4.24% vs. 14.69%) or 4 types (13.33% vs. 8.39%) of racism. Thus, before the Pandemic Black overall experienced more types of racism compared to the Asian group. The scenario during the Pandemic is bit at a lower intensity as most of the Asians reported only one type of racism and for the Black the portion reporting two types of racism is higher compared to the Asian group (14.55% vs. 9.09%).


**Table 3.** *Count of types of racism at workplace before and during the pandemic.*


*Perspective Chapter: Impact of COVID-19 on the Health of Ethnic Minorities in the UK… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104871*

**Table 4.**

*Distribution of racism types at work before and during the pandemic by BAME group.*

**Table 4** shows the distribution of respondents reporting various types of racism experience before and during the pandemic at workplace (607 and 470, respectively) by detailed ethnic groups. The distribution of respondents across 11 categories of BAME group was surprisingly the same as those for the distribution of reporting total types of racism experiences; this implies that quantum of racism experiences was observed across the board by all 11 BAME groups people. Further, there was hardly any difference in the proportion of types of experiences across 11 categories of BAME between "during the Pandemic" vs. "before the Pandemic". Compared to Asian group, the Black group reported lower proportion of types of experiences during the pandemic vis-a-vis before the Pandemic (Black – 54.47% vs. 56.84% and Asian – 45.53% vs. 43.16%).

#### **4.4 Covid-kit related unfairly treated cases by types**

**Table 5** presents the unfairly Covid-kit related cases by six types. The highest share of the reason was by 'None of the Listed Reason' (30.97%); which was followed by working in 'Covid 19 positive environments' (18.58%), adjustments after risk assessment (17.26%), and access to risk assessment (14.16%). These reasons did not differ much between Black and Asian staff; however, Asian staff relative to Black experienced discrimination in regard to distribution of PPE.

#### **4.5 Impact on Health & Wellbeing**

The results from the survey clearly highlights that NHS BAME staff had experienced racism both before and during the Pandemic; and several of them had gone through that traumatic experience more than once. The Pandemic period which covered just a span of one year and thus reported a high spurt of work-related and COVID-kit related cases when compared to the whole work-life span before the


#### *Psychosocial, Educational, and Economic Impacts of COVID-19*

**Table 5.**

*Distribution of Covid-kit related unfairly treated cases by types.* *Perspective Chapter: Impact of COVID-19 on the Health of Ethnic Minorities in the UK… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104871*

Pandemic. More than half of respondents (53%) had experienced unfair treatment in the Pandemic in relation to COVID PPE kit, risk assessment or COVID-ward placement. The experience of racism has severely affected their current or previous placement as well as their health: 59% reported difficulties in doing their job, in 53% cases impacted mental health, and in 36% cases they left the job. Several BAME staff were scared and reluctant to report racism to their superiors/managers. Only about 60% of them reported to the management of which a majority (four-fifths) did not receive a fair response/deal from the management. This clearly reflects that several of BAME nursing and allied staff were deployed to COVID-risk wards and were treated unfairly with respect to both provision of PPE and other safety issues. These instances have affected their health and mental wellbeing and compromised their self-esteem and undermined the confidence to carry-out such a novel healthcare profession for the healthier society.

#### **5. Conclusion**

COVID-19 has shown widespread impact on social an economic life of people in the UK. The consequences are felt much more on the health and economic livelihood of minority ethnic groups living in the UK. We observed that both Black and Asian background people had experienced much larger COVID-19 and its variants infection rates with greater incidence of hospitalisation and use of Intensive Care Units and resultant high fatality rate when compared to their White counterparts. Men from BAME groups experienced high disability and mortality rates compared to White adults. Even after one-year living in the Pandemic environment both health and mental wellbeing of BAME people continue to remain far below than those of White population; thus, indicating a slow recovery among BAME people when compared with the pre-pandemic levels. Similar slow recovery was noticed in the case of life satisfaction indicator over a year or so. In terms of accessing specialist health services (organ transplants), the Pandemic has pushed up waiting times for transplant for BAME patients and in several cases waiting time has been extended to three years. In this process BAME patients have experienced much higher mortality whilst waiting for their organ transplants when compared to their White counterparts. Finally, a spurt in racism at work for BAME staff in the UK health sector has been noticed during the 12 months of Pandemic period. COVID-19 environment has also contributed enormously towards racism to BAME healthcare staff. Despite working in high risk-Covid wards under difficult time, their health and wellbeing has been affected severely. Unless we cannot adopt and implement zero tolerance racism policy at workplace, the racism against BAME workers cannot be halted. Behind all of these devastating impacts, the real issues lie in the fundamental socio-economic inequalities typically faced by BAME people over several generations caused by the high risks and low-paid employment and inferior living conditions. We will not be able to address the widespread differentials in health outcomes including mortality from COVID-19 until we tackle the disparity in the all-round life opportunities that BAME people have to deal with every day.

*Psychosocial, Educational, and Economic Impacts of COVID-19*
