• The period from 2011 to 2019 saw 890,000 people dying earlier than they otherwise would have done had they experienced the death rates seen in the least deprived quintile (20 percent) of areas.
• Around 102,000 of these deaths were additional to what might have been expected based on levels in the two years prior to 2011.
• In 2020, the level of excess deaths rose by over a further 24,000 compared to that over the previous five years.
• Based on weekly monitoring figures published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), there were nearly 11,000 more excess deaths in the most deprived 80 percent of areas during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 than in the least deprived 20 percent.
• This suggests that over 13,000 deaths in 2020 (the difference between 24,000 and 11,000 deaths) were associated with the pre-existing trend in mortality due to inequality.
• If the above comparisons are made with a less deprived group, the least deprived decile (10 percent) of areas, these figures reduce, but only slightly: Over a million people dying earlier than they otherwise would have done in 2011-19. Around 148,000 of these were additional to what might have been expected based on levels in the two years prior to 2011. About a further 28,000 deaths in 2020 in excess of the level in the previous five years.

A key part of that plan was convening their members to learn from each other, so they organised a series of four members-only roundtables for focused, pragmatic and open discussion in the following areas: 

• How to effectively diversify Boards of Trustees and staff teams. 
• How to establish and maintain inclusive organisational cultures. 
• How best to work with people with diverse lived experience in insight and influencing activities. 
• How to ensure inclusive service delivery. 

This report, Be the Change: How to tackle racial inequalities in health and care charities, highlights the main learnings in each of these areas, and draws out general advice from all these conversations. They hope it will give colleagues in the health and voluntary sectors ideas for what they could do, alongside practical tools to take action.