Management responses to equal opportunities for ethnic minority women within an NHS hospital trust

Individual hospitals within the NHS are having to cope with a number of com peting priorities and policies in the context of difficult financial circum stances. One such policy is Equal Opportunities (EO), It is within the devo lved system of individual trusts that the implementation of (EO) policy tak es place, This 'localisation' of EO issues also applies to the tackling of racial inequalities in the field of job recruitment, training and promotion , The present study is an examination of EO policies and their implementati on at a single National Health Service (NHS) hospital in relation to the re cruitment, career development, training and promotion of female ethnic mino rity employees, Interviews were conducted with fifty ethnic minority female s drawn from administrative, domestic and nursing grades; and a further twe nty-two with hospital managers with responsibility for recruitment, trainin g and promotion, A number of important deficiencies in the hospital's EO po licies were identified by the female ethnic minority interviewees, particul arly in respect of the recruitment process, experiences of career developme nt and perceptions of discrimination and harassment. The article details th e managers' attitudes towards and knowledge of EO policies in general and t heir responses to these deficiencies in particular.