Three years after proposing an emergency resolution, three Black female nursing leaders, long time RCN members and Fellows, and core members of the RCN’s anti-racism subgroup, reflect on their efforts to address the RCN's culture following the Carr Review. While there have been new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) structures and increased diversity on the RCN Council and the executive team, progress has been too slow. The authors argue that to achieve lasting racial equity in nursing requires the RCN to move beyond representation and fully integrate anti-racism into its leadership, policies, and practices. 

A mirror to the RCN's culture

When the Carr Review (2022) was published, it held up an uncomfortable mirror to the RCN. What it reflected was not pleasurable reading: bullying, misogyny, racism, exclusion, and a chronic lack of accountability. For many Black members, women especially, this was confirmation and a validation of their lived experiences: being unseen, unheard, and unprotected in a system that often preferred their silence. 

The review warned that unless the RCN confronted these failures its credibility as a professional body would be untenable.

Why three Black women proposed the emergency resolution

Not long after the report’s release the three of us proposed an emergency resolution stating that we expressed no confidence in the RCN Council’s leadership from 2018–2021, following Bruce Carr KC’s review, and called for the relevant members to resign immediately and not seek future elected roles within the RCN. 

To our surprise, 93% of members who voted agreed with the proposal.

This was not a rebellion, but an effort to promote restoration. We wanted a college that truly centres its members. Nursing media, including Nursing in Practice and Nursing Times, reported on our call for decisive action: for members of the RCN Council to step down to enable a new beginning.

Speaking truth to power as Black women, in rooms not built for our voices, takes more than courage, it takes endurance. It was evident that some White members found our demands for justice uncomfortable. Yet, discomfort is where growth begins. Many White colleagues stood by us and continue to support our push for racial equity.

Since the EGM in November 2022, the three of us have worked tirelessly to further the antiracism agenda, as part of an informal working group, meeting regularly with the Chief Executive and members of the executive team and holding leadership to account.  

In 2023, after the Michelle Cox case against NHS England, supported by the RCN, another moment of reckoning arrived. A White RCN member tried to submit an agenda item at RCN Congress on white privilege, supremacy, and fragility in nursing, it was rejected. In response, and with support from Jim Blair, then Chair of RCN London Board, we proposed another Emergency Resolution, for the RCN to become an explicitly anti-racist organisation, capable of representing all nurses, not just a privileged few.  

Over 96% of members voted in favour. 

The aftermath: slow progress 

The working group which continued to meet regularly ultimately led to the creation of the RCN’s Anti-Racism Subgroup, which we are members of. The RCN now has an EDI Strategy, an EDI Committee, whom the Anti-Racism Subgroup report to, and has recently appointed a specialist agency to rapidly develop the RCN’s anti-racism action plan. The Council is now more diverse and the first Anti-Racism Summit was held in 2024.

These are positive signs, but progress remains slow, especially as racism continues to affect individuals, families, and communities adversely. Representation alone is not transformation. Too often, initiatives are launched without real power, funding, or accountability. Symbolic gestures are easy; structural change is not. Without the latter, even good intentions risk turning into performance rather than substantial progress. 

The RCN’s struggles mirror the wider UK society, with: 

• An intensification of hostile anti-immigration policies,
• Rising Islamophobia,
• A worrying increase in anti-Black racism across institutions.
• An increase of Far-Right groups and unchallenged hostile racist activities   

According to RCN data, racism towards racially minoritised members has risen by 55% since 2022. 

Cases like Michelle Cox’s expose how senior-level racial bias goes unchallenged, while Evonne Hunt’s reinstatement showed both the cost of speaking up, and the power of courage and persistence. 

These are not isolated stories, but symptoms of systemic and structural oppression. 

The cost of courage: Black women and the weight of advocacy 

For Black women in nursing and midwifery, confronting racism is not a project, it is survival. We speak up not because it is safe, but because silence has become unbearable.

But it comes at a cost. 

We are expected to educate, to “share lived experience,” to sit on panels and committees, often without recognition, pay, or emotional support. That kind of invisible labour, piled on top of racial trauma, is another form of harm. 

As Ruth Oshikanlu put it bluntly: 

“Tackling racism should not be built on the backs of Black women. That, in itself, is racism.” 

If the RCN is serious about anti-racism, it must acknowledge this labour, emotionally, intellectually, and financially. 

From words to structural change 

Commitment to anti-racism cannot live in press releases or policy statements. It must be embedded into the RCN’s DNA: its governance, budgets, recruitment, and everyday decision-making.

A truly anti-racist RCN would:

• Review and revise its charter to ensure it reflects 21st-century realities,
• Audit and reform the policies and practices that enable bias or exclusion, ensuring increased visibility and transparency.
• Resource anti-racism efforts, with adequate funding, staffing, and emotional support.
• Protect those leading change properly, ensuring they are not re-traumatised, left isolated or harmed by anti-racism work.
• Hold every member and staff member accountable for upholding anti-racist principles. 

The time for courage is now 

The Carr Review forced the RCN to look in the mirror.

The Extraordinary General Meeting in 2022 put the RCN on notice.

The Emergency Resolution at RCN Congress 2023 forced the RCN to act.

We did not call for change to tear the RCN down, we believe in what it could be, an equitable professional College rooted in care, justice, and humanity for all. 

To RCN leadership: embed anti-racism into everything, policy, governance, funding, and accountability.

To every RCN member: educate yourself, speak up, and stand beside those who have been silenced for too long.

To Black nurses, midwives and allied professionals: keep demanding justice, dignity, and safety. 

The era of symbolic gestures is over. The time for courage, and real change is now antiracism must be collective, embedded and sustained.