Hancock is pressed on report into BAME virus death totals

THE UK Government will take action to tackle any structural inequalities that may be contributing to a higher level of Covid-19 deaths among people from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) background, the Health Secretary has said.

At the daily Downing Street briefing yesterday, Matt Hancock was asked if authorities were looking into why such groups are more at risk and what was being done to mitigate it.

It follows criticism of a Public Health England (PHE) report into disparities in Covid-19 risks published this week that it did not go far enough in explaining the reasons why BAME people are more affected.

Representatives from 13 organisations called on the Government to take urgent action to protect frontline BAME NHS workers.

Following a meeting to discuss the issue, they said the action should include robust risk assessments, sufficient provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and collecting data on occupational risk factors.

The PHE report found that after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region, people of Bangladeshi ethnicity have around twice the risk of death as people who are white British.

Those of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity have between a 10% and 50% higher risk of death when compared with white British people.

Hancock said the report did not take into account factors such as “comorbidities” or “occupation”.

He added: “All the way along if we find things that we can do to help reduce inequalities then we’ll just get on and do them.”