Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Paul Bristow Excerpts
Thursday 4th June 2020

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kemi Badenoch Portrait Kemi Badenoch
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We are distributing funds in many different ways. I have spoken to, for example, the mayors of combined authorities, and they have raised this issue with me as a Treasury Minister, and we will continue to look at it.

Paul Bristow Portrait Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
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The report does reveal correlations between the virus and certain other conditions. Diabetes is mentioned on around 20% of death certificates, but that rises to almost half of the certificates for black and Asian deaths. Does the Minister agree that these links with other health conditions—co-morbidities—need to be studied thoroughly?

Kemi Badenoch Portrait Kemi Badenoch
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Yes, my hon. Friend is right. Within some medical circles, there is an expectation that when we do account for co-morbidities—I believe that there was an article in The Times which referenced the SAGE report—some of these differences do reduce to zero. That is why we are not rushing to take into account what one specific report is saying; we are looking at what has been said by all the different reports, such as the one from Public Health Scotland, to make sure that we find out exactly what is going on.