Discussing Health and Social Care Equity in the UK: An Essay

This essay examines the inequitable access to health and social care services in the United Kingdom, focusing on the experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups. The introduction highlights the importance of equitable service provision and introduces the essay's central argument. The main body of the essay explores various factors contributing to discrimination, including the historical context of BME groups in the UK, biases within healthcare systems, and the impact of these disparities on health outcomes. The essay references existing literature and research to support its arguments, discussing issues such as unequal treatment, lack of access, and systemic biases. The conclusion reiterates the main points and emphasizes the need for government intervention and increased awareness to address these inequities. The essay underscores the need for policy changes and community initiatives to ensure fair and equal access to health and social care for all residents of the UK. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for further action to address these disparities and promote equitable healthcare for all.

Introduction to HSC

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Essay “Accessing health and care services in UK is not equitable. Discussing this
argument in relation a with black and minority ethnic (BME) group.”
INTRODUCTION
Health and social care is a service which is provided to individuals in order to benefit
them. The main aim of this project report is to build an understanding about the concept of health
and social care for which an essay topic is selected that is access to health and social care
services in UK is not equitable. Main objective of this report is to discuss this topic. In this report
approach to health and social care is services is evaluated with the help of arguments related to
black and minority ethnic groups which is often called as BME. Various professional terms
which are used in HSC are described in this report. Factors which support discrimination in HSC
are also mentioned in this report along with accessibility of this services to various types of
people (Schwartz and et.al., 2013).
MAIN BODY
Health and social care are the services which are provided to individuals in order to
provide them benefit. United kingdom has a ample number of health and social care organisation
which operate under both public and private authorities. It is considered that these services are
not equitable in this nation. Equitable is the term which is used where there is a transparency and
equality in operations (Kluge, 2011). There are various specific factors due to which health and
social care services are not equitable and they are discrimination related to minority ethnic
group. United Kingdom is a developed economy, but there are various factors due to which it has
been considered that this nation is not providing necessary services to all their citizens. HSC is
the one the major factors due to which above statement is justified. BME group which is often
considered as Black and minority ethnic group is a term which is used for collection of
individuals which belongs to a specific category which are minor in number (Social and
Committee on Bioethics, 2013). For example: In the case of United kingdom, individuals with
Black complexion are in minority due to which there is high discrimination when it comes to
provide services such as health and social care services. Access to health and social care services
is a term which is used for the level of difficulty which has to be faced by the individuals when
they receive necessary services such as education, HSC and many more.
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Health and social care services are categorised into two classes that is public and private.
In the case of private HSC services, all the operations and management is controlled by private
individuals. Another class is public health and social care services which is controlled and
managed by governmental authorities and there is full control of economy's governmental
parties. Public HSC services has the aim main to provide benefit to the society due to which cost
which has to be incur by the patients is comparatively less in this type of category. Among these
two classes it is considered that there is high discrimination in the case of public HSC services as
these organisations are controlled by public authorities. It is a fact that the activities of partiality
and discrimination are the part of health and social care services. The main base which is
selected for this essay for the discrimination is BME (Ottenberg and et.al., 2011).
BME is black and minority ethnic group are the collection of individuals which are
considered as minority as they are less in number particularly in United Kingdom. UK is a
country which has their base with individuals of white complexion due to which people with
Black complexion are considered not considered as equal. This discrimination is just not limited
with only health and social care services but also is seen in other public services as well such as
education, legal matters and many more. Health and social care services are provided by the
hospitals and nursing homes in United Kingdom. The main reason of this discrimination is
mentality of individuals about the minority ethic group. The doctors, nurses and administration
staff of the hospitals and nursing homes are also belong to White community of UK due to which
this discrimination is even more. This partiality is in various operations of HSC such as not
providing priority to patients which belong to BME, non transparency in the expenses and not
providing reliable services to these patients (Fassin, Van Rossem and Buelens, 2011).
UK is a well developed country in which health and social care services are highly
modified according to the requirements of the customers. There is a issues of differentiations
between white and black and minority groups. It can be defined as an issue in which white
people do not behave good with other people like black or from different nations. It can be
identified in Hospitals where the doctors give preference to the white patients and they do not
provide proper treatment to the black or minority group because they do not consider them as a
part of their nation. Most of the people of UK do not treat black or minority group equal to the
whit people. This thinking of them is affecting on health of black people because they do not get
the right treatment at public place and in heal care centres. Employees in hospitals or heath and

social care organisations misbehave with the minority group and not give them the required
attention which has resulted in higher health issues in black and minority group. It is very
important for the general public and the legal authority of UK to provide the black and minority
group those human rights that may help them to stand in the community. White people have
more human rights as compare to minority group which affect standard of living of black
individuals. In most of the public places these individuals are not able to walk alone at night
because white people compare and they harasses them. In Hospitals there are limited resources
are kept by the doctors for black and minority group that are not sufficient for their treatment and
create increased health issues for them. In UK a separate group has been made by white people
for black which is now become a global issue because on every level national people are treated
good as compare to those who have different nationality. The government should implement
effective strategies to deal with such types of issues in which they may restrict the health care
centres to have some specific medical treatments that are only provided to the black and minority
group. The label of BME (Black and minority group) affect the basic human rights of the
individuals and they are not able to get proper health and social cared due to this. This issues has
taken place since year 1970 in which a protest has been made by black people to be treated same
as the whites and local people in UK. This was made because the minority groups are not treated
well in health care centres and they also not able to get rid of this because there are a few
resources for them in the hospitals that are not able to deal with their health issues. At that time
this issues was dealt effectively and resolved but it has again taken place due to increasing
differentiation between the white and minority group (Dela Rama, 2012). There are various
caste, colour and nationality barriers that are creating these issues. It creates challenges for the
persons who have black complexion because they get questioned about their nationality as they
are not considered for as the local citizens of UK. Whenever they go to any public place or
health care centres they asked to show their ID and some times they are also considered as
terrorists. They are not free to live a happy life all the legal authorities keep eye on their every
activity as they are not considered as the part of their country. If they are in a serious health issue
and they need urgent treatment at that time health care professional do not provide them
appropriate treatment but they always try to get their whole information so that they may contact
police to check their criminal record. All the issues needs to be dealt by the government by
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taking strict actions and providing equal human right to the black and minority group as white
people.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay, it has been ascertained that there is huge discrimination in the
health and social care services particularly in United kingdom. This discrimination is said to
have various reasons such as mentality of UK's citizens, low awareness of Black and minority
ethnic people and many more. From the above essay it has been ascertained that this partiality
can be reduced and evaded by the strict steps of government and awareness in the individuals.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal:
Schwartz, R. L., and et.al., 2013. Health law: cases, materials and problems. West Academic
Publishing.
Kluge, E. H. W., 2011. Ethical and legal challenges for health telematics in a global world:
telehealth and the technological imperative. International journal of medical
informatics. 80(2). pp.e1-e5.
Social, G. and Committee on Bioethics, 2013. Ethical and policy issues in genetic testing and
screening of children.Pediatrics, pp.peds-2012.
Ottenberg, A. L., and et.al., 2011. Vaccinating health care workers against influenza: the ethical
and legal rationale for a mandate. American Journal of Public Health. 101(2). pp.212-
216.
Fassin, Y., Van Rossem, A. and Buelens, M., 2011. Small-business owner-managers’
perceptions of business ethics and CSR-related concepts. Journal of Business
ethics. 98(3). pp.425-453.
Dela Rama, M., 2012. Corporate governance and corruption: Ethical dilemmas of Asian business
groups. Journal of Business Ethics. 109(4). pp.501-519.
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