COVID-19 stats must include residential care as study finds half of deaths may be in care homes

Social care leaders are asking ministers to publish daily figures of deaths to include care homes so 'we know the true scale of problem.'

The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed yesterday a total of 2,099 homes have had outbreaks of coronavirus during the course of the pandemic in the UK.

At present, the government’s daily updated figures on coronavirus deaths do not track those recorded in care homes, with the overwhelming majority being recorded in hospitals.

'They are being abandoned like lambs to the slaughter'

Speaking at the government’s daily press conference on coronavirus yesterday, chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said: “13.5 per cent of care homes had reported cases and there had been outbreaks detected in 92 within the previous 24 hours.”

Labour shadow minister for social care Liz Kendall said: “[The] press conference has exposed the growing crisis in our care homes because of coronavirus. Ministers must publish daily figures of deaths in care homes so we know the true scale of the problem and how fast it is spreading.”

At the weekend, Baroness Altmann wrote in the Mail: ‘The shameful truth is that many care home residents who fall ill are being refused hospital admission.

'In all my decades of campaigning for the dignity of the elderly, there has been no clearer snapshot of how they are being abandoned like lambs to the slaughter. They are being left to die because we don’t value their lives as highly as the young.’

Data collected from five European countries have been collated at the London School of Economics and suggests around half the deaths from coronavirus are happening in care homes.

The team found 42-57 per cent of all deaths linked to the virus were among care home residents. The countries studied by the International Long Term Care Policy Network (ILPN) included Italy, Spain, Ireland, Belgium and France.

The researchers did say that the systems for recording deaths linked to COVID-19 in care homes varied between different countries and regions.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services president Julie Ogley said: “We are extremely concerned and distressed by growing reports of the numbers of people who are dying in care homes and in their own homes, and amongst family carers and our colleagues working in social care across the country.

“Their work is so often overlooked, yet they are giving so much for all of us and the government must give them the tools they need to do their vital work.

"There are two fronts in our response to Covid-19; social care colleagues and family carers are the first line of defence – protecting our communities, at huge risk to their own health and shielding the NHS from catastrophic demand that would overwhelm it.”

Professor Whitty said: “In terms of testing, when an outbreak is suspected, the public health authorities will go in and do testing to assess whether an outbreak has occurred, and that is going on all the time and has been going on through this.

"One of the things we want to do is to extend the amount of testing of people in care homes as the ability to test ramps up over the next few weeks.

"Because clearly care homes are one of the areas where there are large numbers of vulnerable people and that is an area of risk and therefore, we would very much... like to have much more extensive testing."

Government guidance for care homes, published earlier in the month, said they should assess residents twice a day for Covid-19 symptoms – a fever, shortness of breath or a cough – and isolate anyone with symptoms in a single room, with staff using personal protective equipment (PPE) to care for them.