GREAT BRITAIN’S national equality body has launched an inquiry into inequalities experienced by black and other ethnic minority workers in lower paid roles in health and social care.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will examine the experiences of ethnic minority health and social care workers across England, Scotland and Wales.

Black and ethnic minority people are overrepresented in frontline and lower paid roles and have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The inquiry will consider whether race, including any structural factors, contributed to any difference in treatment and experience of ethnic minority workers. It will also explore the impact of ethnic minority workers’ immigration status.

A life and death issue

Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the effect of the pandemic on those working in lower paid jobs in health and social care is a “life and death issue”.

Hilsenrath said: “We need to understand the structural issues which have left people from a range of ethnic minorities at greater risk. This inquiry will help to answer those questions and make recommendations that can be applied to a number of other working environments where ethnic minorities are over-represented at the lowest paid levels.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is among those who have called for a full investigation into the structural racial inequalities laid bare by pandemic.

Last month a study commissioned by the mayor found that black people are at almost twice the risk of dying from COVID-19 as white people.

Responding to the news of the inquiry, Khan said: “From the earliest days of the outbreak it was clear that frontline workers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities were disproportionately exposed to and affected by COVID-19.

“Your ethnicity should never mean the difference between life and death and it’s vital that action is urgently taken to end this injustice.”

Another report led by Baroness Lawrence concluded that “COVID-19 has thrived on inequalities that have long scarred British society” and that the virus has “exposed the devastating impact of structural racism”.

The EHRC will announce an open call for evidence in the coming weeks, as well as further details about an external advisory panel that will help to guide the work of its inquiry.