A report containing advice for the government on how to protect black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities from coronavirus has yet to be published, a senior academic has disclosed.
The safeguarding proposals were drawn up in a separate document to the review published last week showing that Covid-19 kills disproportionately high numbers of people from ethnic minorities which prompted criticism from MPs over the absence of any recommendations or guidance.
Prof Raj Bhopal, a scientist who had been asked to peer-review the unpublished recommendations file, told the BBC that parliament had “not been told the full truth”.
The findings from Public Health England (PHE) said that people of Bangladeshi heritage were dying at around twice the rate of white Britons. It also found that other minority ethnic groups were at up to 50% higher risk of dying.
PHE said the recommendations will be published next week when submitted to ministers.
Bhopal, from the University of Edinburgh, described the report as an “open secret” and had “every hallmark of a [government] report ready to go to the press”.
He added: “If you consult the public, you must publish the results. Otherwise, you’ve wasted their time, you’ve wasted your own time, you’ve wasted taxpayers’ money, and you’ve lost trust.”
Bhopal said the document titled Beyond the Data: Understanding the Impact of Covid-19 on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Communities, and marked “official sensitive”, contains evidence from 4,000 parties.
PHE said in a statement: “The government commissioned PHE to conduct an epidemiological review to analyse how different factors can impact on people’s health outcomes from Covid-19. This was published in full on 2 June.
“In parallel, Prof Kevin Fenton, on PHE’s behalf, engaged with a significant number of individuals and organisations within the BAME community, to hear their views, concerns and ideas about the impact of Covid-19 on their communities.”
Labour called the incident a “scandal” and “yet another in a litany of failures to support BAME communities during Covid-19”.
Marsha de Cordova MP, Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary, added: “The government must now urgently publish these recommendations in full and provide an explanation for its lack of transparency on this review. Black Lives Matter is more than just a slogan, we cannot wait any longer for action to tackle racial injustice.”
Dr Khailash Chand, honorary vice president of the British Medical Association, told Channel 4 News: “The truth is coronavirus is not racist but it has definitely exposed structural and systematic racism in the NHS.
“We have been asking and pleading to the government to look into it and sort this racism out once and for all.”
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said ministers must urgently explain why they refused to publish the work and put it out immediately.
One of the country’s largest unions described it as “going beyond mismanagement of the crisis and has stepped into institutionalised racism”.
In a statement, the GMB said: “By suppressing further investigation into the disproportionate deaths amongst BAME communities and refusing to put in place the recommended additional protection, this government will have cost lives.”
PA Media contributed to this report
