UK care home Covid-19 deaths ‘may be five times government estimate’
I think many of the perceived overloading challenges in hospitals have been pushed into the care sector. I have personal experience of a relative with covid-19 being discharged from hospital into a care home. This all feels a bit like problem shoving for me. I know we are meant to be pulling together and avoiding any criticism of the efforts being made to tackle the virus. When we look at this episode down the long lens of time we will, I am sure, reflect on the uneven balance of praise and recognition between care workers and those in the NHS. I hope we come out of this with a far greater appreciation for those heroes in the care sector, under paid and undervalued, who risk their lives everyday looking after sick old people like my father-in-law in hundreds of small towns across rural England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This story tells us just how challenging their work is.
The number of care home residents who have died from coronavirus could be more than five times the government’s estimate, the sector’s main charity has warned.
Care England, Britain’s largest representative body for care homes, told the Daily Telegraph that up to 7,500 care home residents may have died of the virus.
This is significantly higher than the figure of 1,400 people estimated to have died by the government earlier this week.
“Without testing, it is very difficult to give an absolute figure,” Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said. “However, if we look at some of the death rates since 1 April and compare them with previous years’ rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.”
The figure is also significantly higher than the 217 care home deaths recorded in the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which runs up to 3 April.
The official death toll in Britain topped 15,000 on Saturday, but this only includes data recorded in hospitals. This data can take some days to register, and does not include deaths in the community, such as those occurring in care homes.