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Witnessing discrimination

Everyone has a responsibility to ensure that the workplace is inclusive and free from discrimination of all forms.

Employers and organisations should ensure that they have robust reporting and speaking up procedures to encourage and support professionals in raising concerns about discrimination.

This section sets out what we expect if you witness discrimination in the workplace against a service user, carer or colleague. It also provides some suggestions you might consider in these situations.

Our Sexual Safety Hub provides important information on the standards expected of our registrants and where to seek help and support if you have experienced or witnessed these behaviours.  

 

Relevant standards

Our standards can be a tool to help you decide how to respond if you witness discrimination among colleagues, service users or carers. You can consider the following most relevant standards to help ensure that whatever approach you take is informed and aligns with the standards that apply to your practice.

Promote and protect the interests of service users and carers.

You must treat people fairly and be aware of the potential impact that your personal values, biases and beliefs may have on the care, treatment or other services that you provide to service users and carers, and in your interactions with colleagues.

You must take action to ensure that your personal values, biases and beliefs do not lead you to discriminate against service users, carers or colleagues. Your personal values, biases and beliefs must not detrimentally impact the care, treatment or other services that you provide.

You must raise concerns about colleagues if you think that they are treating people unfairly, that their personal values biases and beliefs have led them to discriminate against service users, carers or colleagues, or if they have detrimentally impacted the care, treatment or other services that they provide. This should be done following the relevant procedures within your practice and should maintain the safety of all involved.

You must take all reasonable steps to reduce the risk of harm to service users, carers and colleagues, as far as possible.

You must take responsibility for assessing whether changes to your physical and/or mental health will detrimentally impact your ability to practise safely and effectively. If you are unsure about your ability to do so, ask an appropriate health and care professional to make an assessment on your behalf.

You must report any concerns about the safety or wellbeing of service users promptly and appropriately.

You must raise concerns regarding colleagues if you witness bullying, harassment or intimidation of a service user, carer or another colleague. This should be done following the relevant procedures within your practice or organisation and maintaining the safety of all involved.

You must support service users and carers who want to raise concerns about the care, treatment or other services they have received.

You must promote and protect the service user’s interests at all times.

You must understand the importance of safeguarding by actively looking for signs of abuse, demonstrating understanding of relevant safeguarding processes and engaging in these processes where necessary.

You must recognise that relationships with service users, carers and others should be based on mutual respect and trust, maintaining high standards of care in all circumstances.

You must recognise the potential impact of your own values, beliefs and personal biases (which may be unconscious) on practice and take personal action to ensure all service users and carers are treated appropriately with respect and dignity.

You must actively challenge these barriers [to inclusion], supporting the implementation of change wherever possible.

You must understand the need to build and sustain professional relationships as both an autonomous practitioner and collaboratively as a member of a team.

You must identify anxiety and stress in service users, carers and colleagues, adapting your practice and providing support where appropriate.

You must identify your own leadership qualities, behaviours and approaches, taking into account the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion.

You must act as a role model for others.

You must understand the need to maintain the safety of yourself and others, including service users, carers and colleagues.

Deciding how to respond:

If you witness discrimination against a service user, carer or colleague, you should consider how the standards can support you in taking action. For example, you might:

  • calmly speak up to de-escalate or halt the behaviour, if it is safe and appropriate to do so;
  • ask for help from a colleague or manager to intervene in the situation if you are unable to and if it is safe and appropriate to do so;
  • follow up with the service user, carer or colleague after the incident to see if they are okay and help them access support, if it is safe and appropriate to do so;
  • support the service user, carer, learner or colleague in raising a concern if they choose to do so;
  • record the incident as soon as possible, including all relevant details and any actions you took;
  • report the incident to your line manager or other senior colleague, following organisational procedure where relevant; and
  • seek out further training on de-escalation tactics and bystander intervention through your employer, professional body, or trade union.

You can reach out to your employer, professional body or trade union for further information and advice on how to respond if you witness discrimination in the workplace.

 

Testimonial from a Music Therapist, England

“For myself and from what I hear from other music therapists of colour, there are honestly too many experiences of discrimination to name. It wears on you. I have had service users who have called me racial slurs or said things like ‘I don’t like Brown people.’ 

As a therapist, you have to be able to hold those comments in a therapeutic way and understand that they’re maybe just trying to get out of the session. But the issue is that when those things are said, they still have the potential to really hurt. 

What makes it even worse is that you often feel like your colleagues just kind of brush it off, especially if they’ve never experienced something like that. We end up having to hold so much more because we’re not getting support or even understanding from the people around us. 

We want our colleagues to stand up beside us and say, ‘that was not okay.’ 

In Music Therapy, there are so many opportunities for colleagues to speak up about what they witness – we have supervision, reflective practice groups, and more. It would ease some of the burden if conversations about racism and how to support those of us who experience racism were raised by colleagues who don’t experience it day in and day out.”

Your duty to speak up 

Health and care professionals have a duty to speak up and act on concerns about safety and when they witness behaviours that are wrong. It’s important that organisations and employers take steps to create environments where people feel safe to do so.

If you witness discrimination in the workplace, you should consider reporting this behaviour to your employer and/or relevant regulator. All NHS employment settings in England have Freedom to Speak Up policies, and the National Guardian’s Office can support you in finding equivalent policies and resources in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. You can get more information about the Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) policy and find your nearest FTSU guardian to learn more. You might also consider reaching out to your trade union or professional body for additional support in making this kind of report.

If you witness an HCPC registrant acting in a discriminatory or abusive way, we encourage you to raise a concern with us.

If you have reason to believe that there is harassment or discrimination in your workplace amounting to a wider concern which is the public interest, you should follow your workplace’s whistleblowing policy and/or contact a whistleblowing charity like Protect that can support you in reporting to the appropriate body.

 

Testimonial from a Clinical Psychologist, England

“In my role, I witnessed a number of discriminatory behaviours from my colleagues. Patients were being spoken about in an unkind and inhumane way. The Black and Brown staff were treated differently by managers and leaders, including being made to pick extra work up while others had limited caseloads. I witnessed Black and Brown staff being unfairly told to work extra hours and being interrogated over what they were doing all week. And I saw the impact of the neglect of staff on our patients.

I raised my concerns about patient safety and discrimination of marginalised staff to the Head of Therapies, but my concerns were ignored. My Head of Therapies ignored me as a Brown psychologist, despite factual evidence from patients. It seemed to me that she was protecting her colleagues who were causing harm to staff and patients. She suspended me after I raised these concerns.  

I raised a grievance with my workplace’s senior HR leadership and the CEO. My grievance was upheld on the grounds of whistleblowing.

The whole process had a significant impact on me and caused me a great deal of distress. It had a harmful impact on patients and on marginalised staff, many of whom left.

While this was a very difficult experience for me, I take my duty and the standards of HCPC seriously. We are regulated by HCPC not by our trusts, and we owe our patients the care they deserve. Speak up for them.

Whilst it may be hard to do something like this, the voices and care of patients matter.”

 

In education settings

Education providers have a responsibility and a duty to protect learners against discrimination in all learning settings, including in practice-based learning

Read more

Helpful resources

Page updated on: 02/02/2026