Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds who have experienced symptoms related to covid-19 for longer than 28 days.

Research into the long-term health symptoms and impacts of COVID-19 and the number of people likely to be experiencing them is ongoing. The National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation have invested £8.4 million in the Post-HOSPitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID), led by Christopher Brightling.

PHOSP-COVID aims to determine the short to long-term chronic health (and health economic) consequences of COVID-19 infection in survivors following hospitalisation, including those from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. The consortium includes experts that have worked extensively with optimising inclusion and recruitment of under-represented populations, such as the BAME community, and will ensure the population recruited to the study is representative of those hospitalised with COVID-19.