THE Government must address “widening health inequality” in UK communities as a part of its response to the primary report of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, has said.
The report by Baroness Hallett, who chairs the inquiry, was published in July. It focuses on the resilience and preparedness of the UK within the face of a world pandemic. More reports are to be published on other areas, including health-care systems, vaccines, the economic response, and kids and young people.
“I ponder whether we’ve got really and completely understood the impact” of health inequality through the pandemic, Bishop Mullally told the House of Lords during a debate on Tuesday evening on the Government’s response to the inquiry.
“We were all affected, but we weren’t equally affected. . . What motion are the Government taking to deal with the widening health inequalities in our communities, not only for future pandemics but for now?”
Trust within the NHS had been damaged due to the inequalities exposed through the crisis, she suggested. In her own research, she had come across instances of “culturally incompetent care”, including a “Sikh man in Southall, who had had a stroke and was unable to talk, who had his moustache and beard cut without obtaining the permission or searching for the consent of his family.
“This was deeply offensive, and, after investigation, it was found there was no medical reason for it to have occurred.”
There was also, she said, a “lack of knowledge from statutory bodies of the availability for his or her communities that faith groups had held for generations”.
Faith groups had been rightly identified as necessary partners in a crisis, the Bishop continued, including their involvement in vaccine rollout and health campaigns; but “that engagement has not been sustained. Forming relationships in a moment of crisis just isn’t the best way that resilient and interconnected communities are built. . . If we’re to make a serious and sustained effort to tackle health inequalities, faith groups should be involved.”
Bishop Mullally asked what progress the Government was making to interact with faith groups “not only within the moment of crisis but over the long run”. She concluded by calling for “serious reform” of social care.
Responding to the four-hour debate, Baroness Merron acknowledged contributions on “inequalities and the inequalities final result”.
And, although the Bishop had not mentioned death and funerals in her speech, Baroness Merron said that she recognised “the Rt Revd Prelate’s concerns in regards to the issues around how death and funerals were handled, and the pain and distress attributable to the shortage of appropriate treatment of the deceased. The Government could be keen to interact with community and faith groups within the resilience review in order that we will get this and other things right in future.”
Among the Conservative peers to contribute to the talk was Lord Frost, who argued that a culture change was needed in society for any future learning system to be successfully implemented.
He suggested: “Most of civil society, trade unions, and faith groups — including the Church of England — all pushed for probably the most risk-averse policies possible. All other political parties pressed for more and tougher lockdowns, more working from home, more public money, and more debt.”
The current Prime Minister, he said, had warned in July 2021 that lifting all restrictions would have “deadly consequences”. Lord Frost said: “It never happened. Not for the primary time, and doubtless not for the last, he turned out to be talking nonsense.”
Government mortality reports from the time put the variety of coronavirus deaths in August 2021 at 2989 people — up from 1591 people in July 2021.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe also mentioned faith groups, saying that they “were also necessary, although personally I used to be very saddened by the closure of churches through the first lockdown”.
