Race Watchdog Backs Teather

1.54.46pm GMT Fri 9th Mar 2007

Sarah Teather believes cuts to services such as school nurses will hit Brent's ethnic minority communities hardest.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) have agreed to investigate Brent tPCT after local MP Sarah Teather accused the health trust of a crippling agenda of cuts that will disproportionately effect Brent's Black and Minority Ethnic communities.

In a letter to the tPCT, the CRE agrees that the proposed programme of cuts 'has relevance to race equality'. The tPCT have therefore been requested to provide details which show 'what actions you have taken to ensure that race equality considerations have been factored into the development of this policy.'

Local MP for Brent East, Sarah Teather, reported the tPCT to the CRE last week, after becoming concerned that the savings programme being proposed to meet the tPCT's financial deficit particularly targeted those services used by Black, Asian, and other Minority Ethnic communities.

The cuts will entrench social segregation in Brent, and prevent some of the most vulnerable communities from accessing the health and social care they desperately need. The tPCT has a legal obligation to promote race equality, as set out in the Race Equality Scheme.

Local Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East Sarah Teather said:

"I was pleased to stand up for the rights of my constituents. It is right that the tPCT should consider the impact of their devastating programme of cuts on all sections of the community.

"Brent has a proud tradition of diversity and of protecting the vulnerable, but this has been totally overlooked by the tPCT. There can be little doubt that these cuts will be most keenly felt in the Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority communities that rely on many of the services being axed.

"Decades of work reaching out to hard to reach groups in Brent's diverse communities is now threatened. This is a short term slash and burn policy which shows breathtaking insensitivity to our local area.

"I hope that the CRE's decision to investigate will be a firm wake up call to Patricia Hewitt and the Labour Government, whose financial mismanagement of the NHS have allowed this situation to develop. For the sake of everyone in our community the Government must now guarantee to safeguard essential services in Brent."

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The Deaprtment of Health is already under investigation by the CRE.