“The NHS Race and Health Observatory’s recent report highlights how ethnic minority communities experience barriers to healthcare and poorer healthcare treatment.

 

“This results in the continual loss of opportunities to prevent disease and protect and promote good health. It is therefore unsurprising that ethnic minority communities in the UK experience poorer health outcomes, including lower life expectancy, more years lived with disability and higher rates of non-communicable diseases including cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Yet these findings are not new. The Covid-19 pandemic alone painted a stark picture of the state of health inequalities in the UK.

 

“RSPH therefore adds it’s voice to the report’s call for this health injustice to be truly recognised and addressed. But to really tackle the pervasiveness of ethnic inequalities in healthcare, and ethnic inequalities in health outcomes head on, we need more than just voices demanding change. We need an actual commitment from the government to place health inequalities firmly on the political agenda and confront the underlying structural and institutional drivers of these inequalities.