Report sheds light on NHS ethnic health inequality

A report commissioned by the National Health Service has found what it calls "overwhelming" minority ethnic health inequalities in the United Kingdom's national health system, which have been highlighted during the pandemic.

The Guardian reported seeing an advance copy of the report, led by the University of Manchester, which said radical steps are needed to address what it called "vast" and "widespread" inequity affecting the health of millions.

"By drawing together the evidence, and plugging the gaps where we find them, we have made a clear and overwhelming case for radical action on race inequity in our healthcare system," said Habib Naqvi, director of the race and health observatory, which was set up by the NHS in 2020.

The review was established last year, 12 months into the pandemic. In April 2020 at its outset, a study of COVID-19 death numbers in hospitals, which was 12,593 at the time, found 19 percent came from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, despite BAME groups accounting for just 15 percent of England's population.

In May 2020, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that in the pandemic's early days, black people were more than four times likely than white people to die from COVID-19, and the first 12 doctors to die from the disease were all people of color.

Dharmi Kapadia, the review leader, said there were examples of unequal treatment right across the health service, leading to "overwhelming and convincing" evidence of poor outcomes for BAME patients.

One of the issues highlighted was the treatment of black people in the mental health sector, where the report found "strong evidence" of "clear, very large and persisting ethnic inequalities" in compulsory admission to psychiatric wards, and also the way people were treated physically once they were there. There were also widespread complaints about access to and treatment by maternity services.

The report comes out just days after the British Medical Association revealed the findings of the biggest ever study of doctors and medical students into the issue of racism in the profession, which produced more alarming figures.

More than 75 percent of doctors said they had experienced racism at least once in the last two years, and of those, 71 percent said they had not reported the issue due to a lack of confidence in how it would be treated. Almost 20 percent of doctors said they had considered leaving their posts or their jobs altogether in the last two years because of discrimination.