Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government (a) is taking and (b) plans to take protect (i) the BAME community, (ii) people in the most deprived areas (iii) older people and (iv) people with medical conditions that put them at greater risk from the covid-19 outbreak.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) is reviewing the findings from Public Health England’s reports to better understand the drivers behind the disparities and the relationships between the different risk factors. Her work will help us to improve understanding of the virus and who it affects so we can build on the existing action we are taking to tackle health inequalities. This includes, for example, our childhood obesity plan, National Health Service health checks, our tobacco control plan and diabetes prevention programme.

In addition, the NHS Long Term Plan commits all major national programmes and every local area across England to set out specific measurable goals and mechanisms by which they will contribute to narrowing health inequalities over the next five and ten years. As areas vary, so will the focus of their goals.