The under-representation of minority ethnic groups in academic general practice

Problem

The general practice (GP) training programme is one of the most diverse, with more than half being from an ethnic minority and over half being female (GMC workforce report 2022). However, in GP academia, over 85% of GP professors are White and 61% are male. There are approximately 43 academic clinical fellow (ACF) jobs in GP, each year, across the UK, which are often the gateway to a career in GP academia. This work aims to explore if trainees in ACF posts are ethnically representative of those in general training posts, using speakers at the National NIHR GP Academic Clinical Fellows Annual Conference as a proxy.

Approach

Using the conference programmes and online searches, demographic information on the conference speakers, from the years 2018 to 2022 inclusive, was obtained and compared to the data on the demographics of GP trainees and academics. A freedom of information act was also requested from Health Education England (HEE) for the demographic data of GP ACF’s for the corresponding years.

Findings

Over the five years, between 2018 and 2022, there was an average of 40 speakers at the conference. On average, Black females were the least represented (n=0.4, 1%), with four of the five years not having a Black female speaker at all. Black males were the second least represented group (n=0.6, 1.5%). Asian males (n=2, 5%) and Asian females (n=3.8, 9.5%) were also poorly represented, compared to White males (n=12.2, 30.3%) and White females (n=20.2, 50%). Data from HEE on the demographics of ACF trainees from 2022 showed that 27 (71%) of the 38 (excluding 5 who did not state their ethnicity) ACF’s were White (with an even gender split).

Consequences

General Practice attracts more ethnic minorities than most other specialties. However, we are not seeing the same representation at an academic level, worsening the higher up the academic ladder you go. This work shows that more needs to be done to recruit and retain ethnic minorities into ACF posts and beyond. We need to understand the reasons for under-representation in GP academia and aim to make it more representative of the specialty.