Ethnicity and palliative care - we need better data: five key considerations

Good quality data on ethnicity is crucial for demonstrating the extent and impact of ethnic disparities within healthcare. However, data must be collected well and used responsibly. We outline five key considerations: (1) Improvement of ethnic group categories. (2) Sensitive, proportionate and timely data collection. (3) Support for staff collecting data. (4) Building public trust in data. (5) Responsible and contextualised use of ethnicity data. Palliative care seeks to adopt a holistic approach to the person and their total pain. By extending this ethos to ethnicity data collection and use, comprehensive and high-quality data could facilitate monitoring practice and disparities.