Care home deaths left out of govt numbers

Charities call for UK daily toll to include cases recorded beyond hospital walls

Several United Kingdom charities have said the nation's official daily novel coronavirus death toll is inaccurate because it overlooks fatalities among elderly people in care homes.

They say the official tally, which counts novel coronavirus-related deaths that happened in hospital, should be updated to include deaths in care homes and in private accommodation.

The government has responded by saying the daily tolls are only supposed to be snapshots of what is happening. It notes that deaths in care homes and private accommodation are being recorded, but in a different way, which means the information will trickle down at a later date.

Therese Coffey, the UK's work and pensions secretary, said on Radio 4's Today program that deaths in care homes and in the community are being recorded by the Office for National Statistics, or ONS.

That data takes longer to collect and is slower to be released into the public domain.

"I think that the certification by doctors is happening regularly, that is being collated by the ONS and it is being published weekly by the ONS," she said. "I think that is a fair system of getting that picture, that unfortunate picture, across the country of where deaths are happening due to coronavirus."

The latest ONS data, which includes fatalities up to April 3, shows 406 virus-related deaths in England and Wales were recorded in care homes and in the community.

Those deaths, which included 217 in care homes, 33 in hospices, 136 in private homes, and 20 elsewhere, would have added another 11 percent to the official tally for that period.

Several UK charities, including Age UK, the Alzheimer's Society, Care England, Independent Age, and Marie Curie have written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, urging him to find a way to accurately record all deaths each day, and to make that full total public.

Age UK said the novel coronavirus-caused COVID-19 is "running wild" in care homes for the elderly, something the government has confirmed by revealing outbreaks at more than 2,000 care homes in England.

"The current figures are airbrushing older people out like they don't matter," Caroline Abrahams, Age UK's director, told the BBC.

And Kathryn Smith, chief operating officer at the Alzheimer's Society, said on Radio 5 Live that care home providers feel they are on an overlooked front line, and that they have too little personal protective equipment to protect staff.

Around 410,000 people are thought to live in the UK's 11,300 care homes, with around 5,500 different companies and charities provide the facilities.

The Care Quality Commission, which regulates England's care homes, has said it too will record deaths in adult social care facilities starting from this week. It has asked care home providers to collect daily figures, including the number of deaths, cases, and suspected cases.

David Behan, director of HC-One, which is Britain's largest care home operator, said there are novel coronavirus infections in around two-thirds of the group's care homes and that, during the past three weeks, virus deaths have accounted for around one third of fatalities at the company's facilities.

The Labour Party has also called on the government to make sure deaths in care homes and in the wider community are included in the daily virus deaths total.