The NHS employs 900,000 people in hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. Ethnic minority workers are found throughout the service in considerable numbers, but only limited information is available about their distribution in terms of discipline and grade. In talks with health authority administrators and personnel officers it has been asserted that the NHS cannot have any problems of racial discrimination because the presence of black staff "proves that there is no discrimination". This paper examines some of the background to this assertion and takes issue with this view.