Member

Amendment 461C is about providing more data. It would not impose new clinical burdens but simply ensure that, when data is already present, it is not deliberately discarded. The case for health data disaggregated by ethnicity is not controversial. Indeed, it is widely accepted as best practice across all domains of public health. We know from decades of research that health outcomes vary significantly between ethnic groups. Precisely because of this, ethnicity is a routine variable in almost all modern health datasets. For example, maternal mortality is higher among women of Black and Asian backgrounds. Preterm birth rates and incidence of certain conditions also reflect pronounced disparities. Access to antenatal care, cultural pressures and socioeconomic factors all play a part. We must have information so that we can learn and adjust course if data demands it.