U.K. Care Home Deaths Much Higher Than Reported, Study Says
U.K. Care Home Deaths Much Higher Than Reported, Study Says
(Bloomberg) --
The number of deaths in U.K. care homes caused by the coronavirus is much higher than official figures reported so far, according to the National Care Forum.
The NCF report estimates that more than 4,000 elderly and disabled people may have died from coronavirus in residential and nursing homes, according to a report dated April 18. The report showed a doubling of coronavirus related deaths in U.K. care homes within just one week, with the NCF highlighting “significant flaws in the current national reporting” amid calls for more accurate data linked to virus-related deaths, Saturday’s report said.
Official care home deaths stand at 217, according to the Office of National Statistics, but the actual number is higher, according to Health Sectretary Matt Hancock. Collecting data on deaths outside hospitals is more time consuming, Hancock said at a hearing on Friday.
“The data on deaths of people who have Covid-19 and die outside of hospitals takes longer to collect, because it is recorded on death certificates, which are often written a couple of days after a death -- they are not always written at the same time -- and are then registered and go into the registry, and then the data can be published,” Hancock said at the hearing. “The reason why the Office for National Statistics publishes with a lag the overall number of deaths, as opposed to deaths in hospitals, is a data collection issue.”
Vic Rayner, executive director of the NCF, said the figure of “more than 4,000 people passing away of Covid-19 within care homes in little more than one month is devastating” and said it is “more worrying to see a virtual doubling of deaths within homes in just one week, clearly indicating that whilst all attention has been on managing the peak in hospitals, the virus has attacked our most vulnerable communities.”
A lack of access to personal protective equipment, or PPE, testing within care homes and financial and operational pressures have left care homes feeling under-supported during one of the biggest health crises of a generation, Rayner said. “Care providers need to be given every ounce of support from government to protect the vulnerable people they care for and the health of their workforce, but to date this has not been forthcoming.”
NCF, which represents not-for-profit care providers, collected data from care homes looking after more than 30,000 people in the U.K., representing 7.4% of the overall residential care home population.
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