Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether she has taken recent steps with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to recruit more (a) people and (b) people from ethnic minority communities onto clinical trials.

In the final report to the Prime Minister on Covid-19 health disparities, published in December 2021, the Minister for Women and Equalities recommended that the National Institute for Health Research and the NHS Race and Health Observatory work to increase ethnic minority representation in research projects and clinical trials. This became action 24 in Inclusive Britain, our response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic disparities, published in March 2022.

In April, we published a report to Parliament on the progress we have made in delivering this and the other 73 actions in Inclusive Britain. We will publish a further update to Parliament in due course.