covid-19|care homes

Comparing Deaths in Care Homes with those in the Community

and why UK data suggests that apart from the initial outbreak there’s little difference in the incidence of deaths between the two

Introduction

Residents in UK care homes were hit hardest of all in the initial outbreak of Covid-19 resulting in Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, asserting that

pandemic planning had been completely inadequate and the Government had focused on the NHS while discharging infected patients into care homes.

Since then much has been done to protect this most vulnerable element of society and stringent Covid-19 safeguarding policies and procedures are now in place; begging the question what difference has this made?

Whilst it’s difficult to answer this question definitively, we can compare the rate of Covid-19 deaths for care home residents with the the general population — those dying in hospitals and at home. If we can truly shield this population we could reasonably expect to see a different pattern in both deaths and hospital referrals between the general population and care home residents. So the question becomes: do we?

The answer is surprising: it is no.

The following chart outlines the weekly trend in officially reported deaths in the UK by place of death.