How health and care systems can improve ethnicity data collection to help combat inequality

In the following case study, we focus on the completion of ethnicity data collection. Ethnicity data are used in the UK to improve or target services more effectively and to inform efforts to address health inequalities and discrimination amongst historically disadvantaged or underrepresented populations. There is recognition that the quality of the data used to inform these efforts needs to be improved. Here, we discuss an example of current efforts in the East of England to address this problem with regards to patient ethnicity, as well as some of the challenges in having good-quality data.

To improve the recording of ethnicity data, the Performance and Analytics team at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) developed an analytics dashboard powered by PowerBI allowing the children’s mental health services clinical teams to view their own rates of ethnicity data completion compared with other teams. The Performance and Analytics team ran meetings and workshops to educate staff about the importance of collecting ethnicity data to help combat health inequalities. Finally, the team was dependent for this work on a central post in children’s services that helped to liaise among different clinical teams regarding the importance of collecting ethnicity data.