Ethnicity is of particular interest in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic therefore NHS Digital have produced this Management Information (MI) which aims to inform users of the quality, coverage, and distribution of ethnic category recording within certain datasets held by NHS Digital.

The 2011 Census published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), is the gold standard for ethnicity recording in England and Wales, however as this data is nearly 10 years old and may no longer reflect the ethnic breakdown of the current population NHS Digital have amalgamated ethnic category data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research COVID (GDPPR-COVID) to provide a near population (England only) level view of ethnic category. The use of the underlying dataset is limited to COVID planning and research purposes due to the legal basis under which the data is collected.