NHS and Ethnicity

[winjim]

Ethnic bias even exists within medical devices themselves.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-action-to-tackle-ethnic-and-other-biases-in-medical-devices

It began with research into SpO2 monitor, where data from studies which developed and enhanced the technology were shown to be heavily biased towards caucasian test subjects meaning that the devices themselves gave erroneously readings in other ethnic groups.

Wait till you find out how racist estimation of kidney function is. Not to mention BMI.

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

Wait till you find out how racist estimation of kidney function is. Not to mention BMI.

It’s topics I already know a lot about.

 

[icowden]

One of my grandchildren received the below txt message from GP Surgery:
Rather an odd question to ask a 15 year old, I would have thought. He does have a "brown face".

I suspect that the actual question is "Our system doesn't have a record of your ethnicity, so could you fill in the form to update the system"

The subtext is usually "ethnicity is a key indicator when he have to submit data to NHSE, and our scores are below the data quality targets so we have just triggered an automatic survey to try and improve our recording of ethnicity"

 

[Electric_Andy]

If the person already has a face to face appointment, it would be much easier to just ask them their ethnicity at the desk (when they are already verifiying your DOB and sometimes your address). Also, I seem to remember having to state my ethnicity when registering for the Drs anyway. Sending a form out that will hit someone's phone and promptly be deleted or swiped past is not going to yield high return rates. This sounds like they are wanting much more info than just ethnicity.

I sort of agree with Bolton Lad, it is a waste of money the way they are doing it. If they really need the data then they've got to put a bit more effort in. We have done a lot of work on under-served populations and generally you can't really find out who is NOT accessing certain care services, unless you compare the registration/treatment data with the general poulation data. And even then it will be biased towards those who have reported to the local surgery or hospital.

The somewhat sceptical view that "our ethnicity data is not up to a pre-determined standard, GoTo "questionnaire on ethnicity" is probably pretty accurate. My organisation had a similar finding, i.e. all of our employees were caucasian. Next thing you know, every new starter was non-caucasian!

 

[icowden]

If the person already has a face to face appointment, it would be much easier to just ask them their ethnicity at the desk (when they are already verifiying your DOB and sometimes your address). Also, I seem to remember having to state my ethnicity when registering for the Drs anyway. Sending a form out that will hit someone's phone and promptly be deleted or swiped past is not going to yield high return rates. This sounds like they are wanting much more info than just ethnicity.

Oh, I agree entirely. I was also around for a lot of the discussion about PDS (Patient Demographics Service). This holds your name, address, telephone number, GP, gender, relations (e.g. children, next of kin etc), previous addresses and phone numbers etc. But *not* your ethnicity. However all of the Electronic Patient Record software that connects with PDS has to record ethnicity. This means that the NHS is constantly recording and re-recording your ethnicity in different systems purely because the powers that be decided that ethnicity is a protected characteristic and couldn't be stored in PDS.

This meant a lot of recording of "zz99" (Ethnicity not stated or not known) type entries, but if you have too many of those you can be penalised by NHSE for poor quality data. Unlike a GP Surgery, Outpatient and Community Appointments are set up way before you actually see the patient. The staff are supposed to record it once they have seen the patient but often forget - they are more interested in recording the clinical info and seeing the next patient / client.