Investigating Institutional Islamophobia in the National Health Service: The Voices and Lived Experiences of Muslim Clinicians.

Since the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks, Islamophobia, fuelled by public anxiety, became the primary designation for discriminatory behaviours and prejudices towards Muslim populations in British and international contexts (Khan, 2015). Islamic ideologies were regarded as a threat to national cohesion and, in addressing such a threat, public sector institutions implemented securitisation policies which had been criticised as reifying Muslim identities, such as the visibility of the hijab or beard, and thus impacted the ways in which actual or perceived Muslimness was seen (Younis and Jadhav, 2020; Anderson and Hargreaves, 2022). Although the NHS framed itself as a secular, diverse and inclusive space, the post-Covid-19 period saw an upsurge in the number of racist incidents towards doctors and, even still, there was limited attention being afforded to the lived experiences of Muslim clinicians, particularly the impacts of their experiences on their workplace performances and career progressions (Malik et al. 2019; Younis and Jadhav, 2020).

Drawing on qualitative data from longitudinal interviews with thirteen participants, including Muslim medical students, junior doctors and consultants, this study investigated the prevalence of institutional Islamophobia within the healthcare sector and shed light upon the lived experiences of Muslim clinicians working within NHS hospital settings. In doing so, this study examined the barriers and challenges encountered by Muslim clinicians as a result of their perceived Muslim identity. This study also investigated the impacts of institutional Islamophobic victimisations on the workplace performances and career progressions of Muslim clinicians and outlined the coping strategies employed by actual and potential victims as a response to institutional Islamophobia.

The study demonstrated that institutional Islamophobia within NHS hospital settings was understood as a non-linear difficulty, where the impacts of victimisation moved beyond the initial interactions between a potential perpetrator and clinician and influenced the perceptions of others and thus revictimised the targeted individual from multiple dimensions. The study also revealed how Muslim clinicians’ exposure to barriers and challenges in relation to dress code compliance, attitudes which denoted medical mistrust and avoidance and belittlement behaviours unveiled the ‘multiple jeopardisations’- a term which encapsuled various driving forces that catalysed institutional Islamophobic tensions (Samari, Alcala and Sharif, 2018). The threat of institutional Islamophobia significantly impacted the workplace performances and career progressions of Muslim clinicians and, in coping with institutional Islamophobic victimisations, clinicians engaged in various coping strategies which were underpinned by individual, institutional and societal objectives. This study offered a three-tier framework for understanding the vulnerabilities of Muslim clinicians within NHS hospital settings. The framework took into account the intersectional identities of Muslim clinicians and was grounded upon the individual, institutional and societal levels, where the distinctive influences and multiple overlaps between these levels shaped the lived experiences of Muslim clinicians.