Gypsies - 70 years on from the Holocaust

From time to time, we look to government to act on our collective behalf and to ensure that the structures of our society are equally accessible to those people who live, sometimes literally, on the margins.

Gypsies, Travellers or Roma [it is for them to tell us how they identify] are people who choose to live differently from most other people.  Over a long period of time, this difference has been used as a basis for hatred, abuse, discrimination and death, with the Holocaust targeting the Gypsy men, women and children for racial persecution and annihilation.  It is known that some 250,000 Gypsies were killed in the Holocaust, and that proportionately they endured death greater than any group except Jews.

A Gypsy couple at the Belzec concentration camp

 70 years on from the Holocaust, you would imagine that some things had changed.  Not sure that they have.

For instance, because Gypsies rarely have a fixed address, our system of registering with a GP for access to the NHS insists that you do have a fixed address and has consistently created real barriers to Gypsies enjoying equal access to health services.  This inevitably means that their overall health is not as good as that of the rest of the population.

Around 6 years ago, the government’s web site announced that :

The Scottish Executive has funded the development of a Patient Record for Personal Health (PRPH and also known as the Handheld Health Record) for Gypsies/Travellers in recognition of their lifestyles and the difficulties they can experience in accessing health services. This has been delivered as part of the work programme of the National Resource Centre for Ethnic Minority Health (NRCEMH).

That looks like a simple yet very welcome and very effective piece of work.

The web site goes on to explain that :

A health needs assessment is also being carried out with Gypsy/Traveller communities to ascertain their particular health needs, and how best to maximise their access to health information and health services.

The NRCEMH developed the Patient Record for Personal Health in partnership with Gypsy/Traveller communities. The Record was officially launched at the first meeting of the Executive's Strategic Group on Gypsies/Travellers. The PRHP is now being rolled out across the country.  The PRHP will allow for greater continuity of care for Gypsies/Travellers. It is anticipated that most Scottish Gypsies/Travellers will carry the Record, especially when they are away from their home base, travelling for social, business or other reasons.

The effectiveness of the PRPH will be reviewed after a reasonable period of usage.

Gives you a sense that here is Scotland doing the decent thing for a community of people who were almost exterminated in the name of racial purity.


Get back on to that web page.  Scroll down to the bottom right hand corner.  Read the small print : Page updated: Wednesday, October 12, 2005.


At 12 August 2011 it still said that.


Shocking.  Suggests what? Complacency?  Lack of commitment?  Structural and institutional discrimination?


Rather than speculate, I thought it best to invite the government to explain, as one does.


On 5^th July I asked the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon, what had been the findings from the health needs assessments, why that had not been used to update the web page, why the web page was almost 6 years behind times, and what the effectiveness review of the handheld record had revealed, and why it had not been used to update the web page?

Nicola Sturgeon

On 12^th August, just as the shotguns were annihilating the grouse from Scotland’s skies, I got a reply.  I have reproduced it in full below.  Before you read it, just go back to the paragraph before and refresh your mind as to what it was I asked.  OK?  Now read on:

Thank you for your email of 5 July to Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health Wellbeing and Cities Strategy about the Scottish Governments work in tackling healthcare for inequalities in Gypsy/Traveller communities.  I have been asked to reply.

I can confirm that the section on the Scottish Government on Patient Record for Personal Health (PRPH) for Gypsies/Travellers is indeed out of date and I would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention, we will ensure this is updated as soon as possible.

As you are aware, in 2005 a PRPH was developed to assist Gypsy/Travellers in accessing health care.  This record was produced on request from communities.  The records were widely distributed through Scotland and in 2006 training programmes were delivered for health and social care professionals to understand the community and the role of the hand held record.

As stated on the Scottish Government website, we did commit to carrying out a review of the effectiveness of the Gypsy Traveller PRPH after a reasonable period of usage.  A review of the PRPH was carried out in October 2009 in the form of an email questionnaire which was distributed to 170 people who had previously attended Gypsy Traveller Awareness Raising Sessions in 2007.  Unfortunately, this review did not provide many findings due a very small response rate of 19%. 

Please be assured that the Scottish Government is determined to drive forward the health equality agenda, as part of our overall health quality strategy, for all the people of Scotland.

You may be interested to know that we have funded a number of recent programmes to tackle health inequalities in Gypsy/Traveller communities.  Outputs from these programmes include: 

·         the Equally Connected initiative in NHS Lothianhttp://www.healthscotland.com/equalities/mentalhealth/equally-connected.aspx

·         the West Dunbartonshire Gypsy Traveller Strategy, improving access to health services http://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/law-and-licensing/equality-and-diversity/gypsy-traveller-strategy/

·         the Highland multi agency action plan on Gypsy/Travellers http://www.highland.gov.uk/livinghere/housing/gypsytravellersinhighland/  

Officials in NHS Health Scotland are also currently undertaking scoping work to identify what support is in place across Health Boards to meet the needs of the Gypsy/Traveller community across Scotland. Please let me know if you wish to be updated on the findings from this work. 

Remember the questions I asked ?

What had been the findings from the health needs assessments? – government chose to ignore that altogether in its response.

Why that had not been used to update the web page? – government couldn’t answer that unless it answered the previous question, which it didn’t.

Why the web page was almost 6 years behind times? – government didn’t answer that either.

What the effectiveness review of the handheld record had revealed? – “this review did not provide many findings due a very small response rate of 19%”

Why it had not been used to update the web page? – government didn’t answer that.  Possibly because of shame and embarrassment ?

I shall continue to press the Nicola Sturgeon on this.  Gypsy Travellers need more than vague promises which are allowed to slide and slip off the list of ‘things to do’ that Nicola has had for a while now.

A group of Gypsies about to be gassed in Belzec
extermination camp. Picture found on an SS prisoner.

We need more than this kind of pathetic performance by our government if we are to claim we have created a decent society.  For a community of people who were almost annihilated in WWII, one would imagine our creating equal access to health services for them would be a small goal for our government to achieve and yet a powerful signal from us to them that their health matters to us and that we embrace their difference.  It would appear not.  It would appear that Nicola and her officials need a serious nudge in the ribs to make them do the right thing on gypsy travellers.  Go on.  Nudge Nicola.