Royal College of Nursing comments on ONS data on Covid-19 deaths
Commenting today’s data on deaths from Covid-19 from the ONS, Dame Donna Kinnair, Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said:
“Today’s findings from the ONS make difficult and distressing reading. They show that our fears that disproportionate numbers of nursing staff, as well as patients, from black and Asian communities are dying from the virus are well-founded. It’s also very worrying that the ONS states that the higher death rate cannot simply be explained by socio-economic disadvantage.
“The review currently being carried out by Public Health England may provide some answers, but we urgently need more research to be commissioned into what factors are causing this impact on black and Asian communities.
"In the meantime, we are calling for all BAME healthcare staff who feel they may be at high risk – whether because of diabetes, heart disease or simply because they don’t have adequate PPE – to ask their managers for urgent risk-assessments, and if necessary, to be deployed away from the frontline."
Ends
