New public management and equal opportunities in the NHS

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Abstract
This article argues that there is a tension between the discourse of new public management and the discourse of equality of opportunity within the National Health Service (NHS). Equality policies within the NHS have tended to be regarded as being of marginal importance in comparison to budget control, while simultaneously stereotypical perceptions of ethnic minorities persist which have direct implications for patterns of promotion and recruitment in a management structure that has devolved responsibility for recruitment to line managers. The confinement of ethnic minority nursing staff to the least desirable specialities and grades has largely been unaltered by the introduction of equality policies and in fact has led to increased feelings of scepticism on their part. Of particular significance is the over-representation of ethnic minority nursing staff in disciplinary procedures which reinforces ethnocentric assumptions about minorities among mainly white managers within the NHS.