Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the correlation between health inequalities and (a) covid-19 death rates, (b) developing covid-19 complications and (c) contracting covid-19.

On 2 June 2020, Public Health England (PHE) published a report on disparities in risks and outcomes of COVID-19. This can be accessed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-review-of-disparities-in-risks-and-outcomes

The review presents findings based on surveillance data available to PHE at the time of its publication, including through linkage to broader health data sets.

Outcomes reported include diagnosis rates for laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations, death rates for confirmed cases, death rates from all causes, excess mortality, and the risk of death among people with confirmed COVID-19.

Diagnosis rates were based on laboratory confirmed cases under Pillar 1 testing. The majority of testing under this pillar has been offered to those in hospital with a medical need as well as National Health Service key workers, rather than the general population. Confirmed cases therefore represent the population of people with severe disease, rather than all of those who get infected.