My mother got a black service, not an NHS service before her death, says health chief

A senior figure in the health service has criticised it for deep-seated racism after his late mother "got a black service, not an NHS service".

- Denis Campbell

Victor Adebowale, the chair of the NHS Confederation, said his mother's lung cancer had gone undiagnosed because black people got "disproportionately poor" care. The NHS's failure to detect her cancer while she was alive showed patients experienced "two different services", based on their skin colour, said Adebowale.

His mother, Grace Amoke Owuren Adebowale, an ex-NHS nurse, died in January aged 92. He highlighted her care in his speech this week at the NHS Confederation's annual conference as an example of "persistent racial inequalities in NHS services". His remarks prompted fresh concern about the stark differences between the care received by those from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds and white people.

"My mum, who worked for many years as a nurse, died earlier this year at the age of 92. It was difficult. It was not the dignified death that we would have wanted for her. It wasn't the death she deserved. So it makes me clear about the need to address the inequity. I think she got a black service, not an NHS," Adebowale told NHS bosses.