BORIS Johnson denied today that institutional racism within the NHS was a factor in the high proportion of Covid deaths of people of ethnic minority backgrounds.
Johnson denies NHS institutional racism caused more BAME Covid deaths
The former prime minister told the Covid inquiry that he believed the reason was because NHS front-line workers were more likely to be black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME).
Leslie Thomas KC, representing the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, asked Mr Johnson about his government’s then-chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance’s view that pandemic healthcare disparities were “entirely foreseeable” and Covid had exacerbated existing inequalities.
Mr Johnson said the government did not know the “extent to which the virus itself would impact different groups differently” in the run-up to the first national lockdown and that a disproportionate effect on disadvantaged people was one reason why he was reluctant to go ahead with it.
He said: “It appears that there aren’t any medical grounds, what it was was fantastic NHS staff from ethnic minority backgrounds on the front line.”
Mr Thomas pointed out the first 10 doctors to die of Covid were BAME, asking whether Mr Johnson agreed that “institutional racism within the NHS,” to which the former health secretary Matt Hancock referred and which was set out in a Public Health England report, had been a factor.
Mr Johnson said: “I’m not certain, I’m afraid that I’ve seen evidence to support that.”
The report, published in June 2020, stated: “People of BAME groups are also more likely than people of White British ethnicity to be born abroad, which means they may face additional barriers in accessing services that are created by, for example, cultural and language differences.”
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