Chamber and committees

Health data on minority ethnic groups is collected in a variety of ways. For example, data can be collected through a variety of mechanisms, such as face-to-face interviewing, completion of on-line survey forms or collection of data from an individual at the point of contact with a service.

The Scottish Government collects data on minority ethnic groups through the large-scale surveys it runs, such as the Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) and the Health and Care Experience Survey (HACE). Data on minority ethnic groups may also be collected in smaller, bespoke surveys or programmes of research.

A summary of the ethnicity data collected across Health and Social Care is available on the equality evidence finder page here:

www.equalityevidence.scot

Data on minority ethnic groups is also is collected on a number of key health service datasets that are collated by Public Health Scotland (PHS) such as inpatients and day cases, A&E attendances and so on. Further details of these datasets and associated levels of completeness are presented on the PHS website here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Equality-and-Diversity/Equality-Evidence-Finder/

Public Health Scotland also publish information on the levels of data completeness for minority ethnic groups within selected data sets here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/products-and-Services/Data-Support-and-Monitoring/SMR-Ethnic-Group-Recording/

The Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and ethnicity has made recommendations on improving the coverage and completeness of data on minority ethnic groups and the Scottish Government is working with other agencies to implement these recommendations. The ERG recommendations can be found here:

Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .