Professor John Robertson OBA

From Closing Statement of behalf of Public Health Scotland (PHS) in the UK COVID-19 Inquiry relative to the Module 4 hearing, published today:

PHS would highlight two parts of the evidence in this regard. Firstly, the inquiry heard that data from the Traveller Movement was not included in the NHS [England] “data dictionary”. The point made was that inadequate data capture led to services not being commissioned for this group, which did not form part of local planning. Yvonne McNamara, Chief Executive Officer of the Traveller Movement spoke about this as did the experts, Dr Ben Kasstan-Dabush and Dr Tracey Chantlerii. In Scotland, however, data for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (“GRT”) community was captured within data systems. With the use of data (produced by PHS), the expert report was able to identify the GRT community as the most unvaccinated group. This evidence underscores the vital importance of adequate data capture to address matters like vaccine hesitancy and low uptake.

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/phs-closing-statement-for-module-4-uk-covid-19-public-inquiry