Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 11 May 2022.
Thank you very much, John, for that question. As you've highlighted, the pandemic laid bare, really, the health inequalities faced by black and minority ethnic communities, and that's why the First Minister established the group to look at those health inequalities, which are a priority for us. I'm really grateful to Muslim Doctors Cymru for the work that they did. I know that they helped us with webinars, that they did Q&As with the community and have been really, really active. So, I'm very happy to place on record my thanks to them for what they're doing.
You'll be aware that, as part of our COVID-19 response, Welsh Government set up a network of 11 community outreach workers to try to tackle the issues around engagement in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. And, although the focus of test, trace, protect is now changing, those community outreach workers will be continuing to work with ethnic minority communities to try to tackle those health inequalities. And I think it's really important, going forward, that when we do tackle those health inequalities, that we are doing that in a co-produced way with the very communities that we are trying to reach.