Responding to the weekly mortality stats from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the week ending 24 April 2020, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Research Sarah Scobie said:
“The vulnerable social care sector is now becoming the epicentre of the covid-19 pandemic in this country. Despite a very small decrease in overall deaths from the previous week, the numbers in care homes are still growing. In the week up to 24 April there were nearly four times more deaths registered in care homes than we would typically expect. We are now seeing almost as many deaths in care homes as hospitals which will be putting an incredible amount of strain on overburdened care services.
“Almost two-fifths of all registered deaths (across all settings) were attributed to the virus, but the overall number of deaths is more than double that expected. There are questions as to the extent covid-19 deaths are being under recorded and why, or what else might explain the rise in non-covid deaths."
Notes to editors
- The Office for National Statistics weekly mortality statistics are available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending24april2020
- The Nuffield Trust is an independent health think tank. We aim to improve the quality of health care in the UK by providing evidence-based research and policy analysis and informing and generating debate.
- For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Simon Keen on 07805 217935 or simon.keen@nuffieldtrust.org.uk