Covid Inquiry: Pandemic shielding should be kept ‘in reserve’

The inquiry heard from Sir Michael’s statement that “ethnic minorities form a much smaller proportion of the population than in many other regions of the UK and ethnicity is not well coded in Northern Ireland health care records.

“As a consequence, analysis regarding ethnic minorities was not available due to the poor coding of ethnicity in health care records and it was not possible to look at trends in those from different ethnic backgrounds nor to analyse impacts,”

“Within the health care systems one can record ethnicity but there is not uniform recording of ethnicity and that is something that clearly does need to be improved.”

It was put to Sir Michael that in his response to the pandemic he would have been aware of the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on black and minority ethnic workers in particular and that he would have wanted to look at the data to see how this impact was playing out in Northern Ireland.

Sir Michael told the inquiry that he would have wished to do that but because of the lack of data it was not possible.

The chairwoman of the inquiry, Baroness Hallett questioned Sir Michael about the fact that in September 2024 there were still no changes to ensure that Northern Ireland could record ethnicity where there was a disproportionate impact

The chairwoman asked her counsel to make sure that when they hear from Robin Swann that those who were advising him, and his department were aware about her concern about this issue.