Abstract
Last month marked the first anniversary of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report (MacPherson, 1999), which put ‘institutional racism’ firmly on the agenda of British public services. Brief details relating to the Inquiry are highlighted in Box 1 and a definition of institutional racism is provided in Box 2. During the past year the UK Government has announced plans to extend the 1976 Race Relations Act to cover both ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ racism in public bodies, including the National Health Service (NHS).