Shocking figures that reveal the true scale of the devastation in the UK’s care homes.
New analysis by the London School of Economics and Political Science suggests that the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in care homes in England and Wales is over 22,000 – more than double the official death toll of almost 10,000.
Adelina Comas-Herrera and Jose-Luis Fernández from the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre found that the available data on COVID-19 deaths in care homes only accounted for an estimated 41.6% of all ‘excess’ deaths in care homes (compared to the average number of deaths for the same weeks in the previous 5 years).
As the same time, they determined that 15% of care home resident deaths were happening in hospitals and not being counted in the estimates of deaths in aged care homes.
With 19,038 ‘excess’ deaths in aged care homes since 28 December 2019 (46% of all ‘excess’ deaths), the researchers say if you add in the assumption that 15% of residents die in hospital, the number of care home deaths linked to COVID-19 was 22,398 at 1 May.
But the researchers say not all these residents would have died from COVID-19.
Instead, they put these extra deaths down to residents who did not seek or receive medical care for other health conditions for fear of contracting COVID-19 or over-burdening the NHS as well a lack of access to their regular care.
The figures come as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new £600 million (AUD$1.1 billion) “infection control fund” for care homes, with a clinical lead to be appointed within each home and a new coronavirus training program to be introduced for staff.
That didn’t stop Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer from attacking the PM, saying the Government response had been too slow to protect aged care residents.
Mr Johnson conceded that the “number of casualties has been too high, but I can tell the House, as I told [Sir Keir] last week and indeed this week, the number of outbreaks is down and the number of fatalities in care homes is now well down.”
