Labour calls for bosses to risk-assess staff given higher BAME Covid-19 death rate

NHS staff putting on PPE
AP

Bosses should risk-assess employees to give them appropriate work or protection given the higher Covid death rates for black and other ethnic minority groups, Labour urged today.

Sir Keir Starmer and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, the party’s race relations adviser, called for the Government to urgently issue new guidance as more and more people return to work.

Shock figures in early May showed black people are four times more likely to die from the virus than the white population.

Ministers have asked Public Health England to carry out research into differences in the coronavirus fatality rate.

“In the meantime, we believe action can be taken now to help protect BAME (black and minority ethnic) communities from the coronavirus,” Sir Keir and Baroness Lawrence, whose 18-year-old son Stephen was stabbed to death by a racist gang in Eltham in 1993, wrote in a letter to Boris Johnson.

They highlighted advice from NHS England last month that on a “precautionary basis” all NHS employers should risk-assess staff from BAME backgrounds, along with others who may be at higher risk, and “make appropriate arrangements accordingly”.

“We are writing to ask that the Government now consider including this advice for all employers,” the letter added.

The NHS England guidance was sent out after early reports suggested many of the doctors, and nurses, dying from Covid-19 were from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Professor Kevin Fenton, regional director of public health at PHE and NHS London, said: “Through our ongoing ‘Review into factors impacting health outcomes from COVID-19’ detailed and careful work is rapidly being completed so that we can better understand this and explore the possible reasons for any disparities.

“The review will publish by the end of May 2020 and will help inform the Government’s response to the pandemic.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: “This virus sadly appears to be having a disproportionate effect on certain groups of people such as men, obese people, and also those from BAME backgrounds.

“It is critical we find out which groups are most at risk so we can take the right steps to protect them and minimise their risk.”

An Office for National Statistics study found that, if just considering age, black women were 4.3 times more likely to die from a Covid-19-related death, and black men 4.2 times more likely, than their white counterparts.

Once socio-demographic and self-reported health and disability factors were taken into account, black people were still twice as likely to be killed by coronavirus.

People of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian and mixed ethnicity also had a higher risk of death compared with the white population.

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