How many deaths in England’s care homes?

From sam:

Four days ago the BBC ran an article asking how many deaths there were in England’s care homes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52284281

“This is a difficult figure to calculate.

There are more than 15,000 care homes in England, compared with about 200 hospital trusts.

There is a two-week time lag in the data collected for official statistics. The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are for the week ending 17 April. At that point, there had been 3,096 Covid-19-related deaths in care homes in England and Wales.

This means that about 16% of all Covid-19 deaths to that point had occurred in care homes – a high proportion, considering they house less than 1% of the country’s population.”

16% seems to be very low when compared with death rates in care homes in other countries. In a piece for Progressive Pulse, Professor Sean Dannaher attempted comparisonsof deaths in care homes in different countries.

“Data from 5 European countries suggest that care home residents have so far accounted for between 42% – 57% of all deaths related to Covid-19.

The European countries analysed are Belgium (42%), France (44.6%), Ireland (54%), Italy (c45%) and Spain (57%). It is difficult to see at present why the UK should be very different.”

Prof Dannaher finds the information here:

http://www.progressivepulse.org/health/care-homes-and-uk-mortality-figures

Mortality associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes: early international evidence.

Also, he concludes that the UK care homes sector is similar in size to that of the countries whose death rates are around 50%.

The BBC says there are 1.2 million adult social care workers in England giving direct care. There are, it adds 410,000 people in care homes in England. At the 2011 census, 60% of the elderly care home population were 85 or older – but this is now likely to be higher, given the ageing population.

Each week in the UK, it is estimated that 540,000 people receive support in their own home.

It is hard to see that there will not be,unfortunately, a surge in recorded deaths in the care homes and homes of the elderly in England.

5 thoughts on “How many deaths in England’s care homes?”

  1. The only, to me, realistic way to measure deaths due to Covid-19 is to measure excess deaths compared to long term averages. The vast majority of these will either be directly due to C-19 or partly due to complications.

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    1. Even that isnot without its difficulties. I have copied and pasted a piece from the Guardian, the final paragraphs, by statistician David Spiegelhalter. I may add a piece that tries to show the excess death rate in England nad maybe some guesses by Richard North. Here are the copied bits and link.

      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/30/coronavirus-deaths-how-does-britain-compare-with-other-countries

      “But these are still deeply unreliable numbers, as it is not clear if we should just be looking at Covid-19-labelled deaths anyway. The effects of seasonal flu are not based on tests or death certificates, but at looking at the total number of deaths over the winter, seeing how many extra there are than a baseline, allowing for climate, and assuming these excess deaths were linked to flu. On average, over the last 10 years this has come to about 8,000 flu-related deaths, rising to 26,400 in 2017-2018 and 28,300 in 2014-15.

      Many feel that excess deaths give a truer picture of the impact of an epidemic. The latest ONS figures reveal that in the week ending 17 April, the week after Easter, around 22,500 deaths were registered in England and Wales, compared with an average of around 10,500 a week at this time of year. Nearly 9,000 of these had Covid-19 on their death certificate, but that leaves 3,000 extra deaths – more than 400 a day – essentially unaccounted for. Many of these will be indirect effects from the disrupted health service: routine treatments have been largely abandoned, A&E attendances and non-Covid-19 hospital admissions have plummeted.

      But, of course, people are not so interested in the numbers themselves – they want to say why they are so high, and ascribe blame. But if it’s difficult to rank this country, it’s even trickier to give reasons for our position. Covid-19 mainly harms the elderly, with the average age of deaths above 80, and its fatality rate doubles every seven years as a person ages. Italy’s population is elderly (it has a median age of 47), while Ireland’s is much younger (a median age of 37), so we would expect different effects. And Covid-19 is a disease of crowded areas – New York is rather different from Reykjavik. An obsessive comparison is being made between Norway and Sweden: Sweden’s more relaxed social distancing policies may or may not have been instrumental in their current death rate being 233 per million, compared with Norway’s 38.

      Even if we reach some sort of stable situation – if we can imagine it – will we ever know the direct and indirect health effects of the epidemic, taking into account reduced road accidents, the benefits of reduced pollution, the effects of recession and so on? Many studies will try to disentangle all these, but my cold, statistical approach is to wait until the end of the year, and the years after that, when we can count the excess deaths. Until then, this grim contest won’t produce any league tables we can rely on. “

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  2. Chris Giles, FT, tweets:

    “So, by mid April, there have been 30,600 excess UK deaths,

    My estimate is there have been another 19,600 since.

    UK govt currently estimates since 13April:
    – 12,200 hospital deaths
    – 15,400 deaths in all settings
    Both of people who were tested positive.

    4/
    Show this thread
    Chris Giles
    @ChrisGiles_
    ·
    18h
    We know from data already published and rough data lags between death and registration that there have been:
    – 27,015 excess deaths in England and Wales up to 13 April
    – 3,116 in Scotland up to 17 April
    – 410 in Northern Ireland up to 14 April

    These are tragic facts

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  3. Richard North speculates that it is multiple exposures to covid19 that causes deaths rather than a single isolated contact with an infected person. If true, this has implications for care homes, prisons,schools and a great many institutions.

    It may also explain why speed of action in getting to grips with the virus as soon as possible was successful in its containment and kept deaths at a low level.

    http://eureferendum.com/

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