Thousands of elderly patients have died of suspected coronavirus in care homes in just one week, new data has suggested.
More than 4,000 residents across UK care homes might have passed away after catching the virus before April 13, estimates the National Care Forum (NCF), which represents not-for-profit care providers.
This is significantly higher than the official weekly figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which recorded 217 care home deaths connected to the virus up until April 3.
The NCF found that 299 confirmed or suspected Covid-19 deaths occurred in 47 care homes between April 7-13 – almost three times the number of deaths in the preceding months, when they found when they found 102 deaths between March 6 and April 7.
Data was collected from the 47 care homes which look after more than 30,000 patients, which accounts for 7.4% of the care sector population.
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When scaled up to reflect the UK’s care home population, the NCF estimated that 4,040 people may have died of a coronavirus-related illness before April 13.
This means that in a single week, 2,500 people could have died.
Following the data, executive director of the NCF, Vic Rayner, called on the government to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to all care homes, as well as monitoring devices, testing, funding and research.
She said that while care home deaths are excluded from the UK’s daily death toll figures, officials will not be able to get a handle on how to deal with the crisis.
Ms Rayner said: ‘Quite simply, so long as groups such as residents in care services are omitted from the real-time national reporting on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Government will surely be unable to properly plan for how to protect its people or exit this crisis.’
She added: ‘Our current national debate on how to mitigate and exit this crisis is virtually entirely centred on the management of the peak within hospitals.
‘We are overlooking how this crisis is playing out in other settings, which are there to protect those who are most vulnerable to the impact of the virus.’
Separate analysis from Care England, which represents independent carefirms, said as many as 7,500 people could have died after contracting coronavirus in care homes. The industry body compared death rates since April 1 with the previous years’ rates.
Public Health England said there were 3,084 care homes with Covid-19 outbreaks in England, as of April 15.
Last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said all care home residents and staff with symptoms of Covid-19 would be tested for the illness. He said data on residents who die with the virus will be available ‘very shortly’.
Meanwhile, a care sector leader said until testing is done it will be difficult to know the number of people who have died with Covid-19 within the caresystem.
When asked on Sky News show Sophy Ridge On Sunday whether the official figures reflected reality, Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the National CareAssociation, said: ‘Until testing is done we don’t know.
‘There are expected deaths that will occur in services but without testing… it’s very difficult to say where we are with the number of deaths.’
She described care homes as a ‘home from home’ where a lot of residents and their families will be worried about the unfolding news.
Ms Ahmed said: ‘We need to be responsible about how we reflect this, of course there will be deaths… but the numbers we won’t be able to confirm until the data is analysed.’
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