Inequalities in Access to Bereavement Support Before and During COVID-19: Findings from Voluntary and Community Sector Bereavement Services in the UK

ABSTRACT

Background/aims: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in global mass bereavement;in the UK alone there have been 140,000 deaths to date, with a disproportionate impact on Black, Asian or minoritized ethnic (BME) communities. Voluntary and community sector (VCS) bereavement services including hospices play an important role in bereavement support. We aimed to determine services' perspectives on access to their support. Methods: Cross-sectional online survey of VCS bereavement services in the UK, open March-May 2021, disseminated via national organisations, associations and networks and social media. Results: 147 organisations participated;53% served specific counties or smaller regions;16% were UK-wide. 36% were hospice or palliative care services, 15% national bereavement charities or NGOs;12% local bereavement charities. 67.3% reported there were groups with unmet needs not accessing their services before the pandemic;most frequently reported were people from BME communities (49%), sexual minority groups (26.5%), deprived communities (24.5%) and men (23.8%). 50% of services reported that, in the year before COVID-19, <5% of clients were from BME communities;25% did not collect this data and 25% reported >5% BME clients. Compared with before the pandemic, 3.4% of services were seeing more people from BME groups, 52% were seeing the same proportion, 6.1% were seeing fewer and 38% didn't know/didn't collect this data. Conclusions: For over two thirds of VCS bereavement services in the UK, there are known inequities in who accesses support, with people from BME groups most likely to be recognised as needing support but not Paediatric Palliative Care Commissioners (n=2) Gender FemaleMale 20 accessing services. During the pandemic, the proportion of BME clients did not increase, despite these communities being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. More attention needs to be paid to assessing and meeting unmet needs for formal bereavement support among disadvantaged groups and routinely collecting client data to help determine and ensure equity. (Table Presented).