Care home deaths from coronavirus have risen nearly tenfold in a week, according to the latest Office for National Statistics figures. Fatalities reached 217 for the week ending April 3, up from 20 recorded Covid-19 deaths in the previous week.
Professor Chris Whitty said the rate of infection among the UK’s 17,000 care homes was now 13.5 per cent, up from nine per cent less than a week ago. “We want to extend the amount of testing of people in care homes, because clearly care homes are one of the areas where there are large numbers of vulnerable people,” he said.
Occupancy rates in care homes are also falling due to the deaths along with fewer new admissions as a result of the pandemic according to Nick Hood, analyst at Opus Restructuring & Insolvency: “Revenues will be sharply lower, while the extra expense of recruiting agency staff to cover for self-isolating care workers and the exponential rise in hygiene spending will be pushing costs up.”
Telegraph readers have shared their experiences of having parents or relatives in care homes, working in care homes, and their views on the current care home crisis in the comments section and in the Telegraph Community Facebook group.
Read on for what your fellow readers have had to say and then take to the comments section below to share your experiences.
‘We have no PPE’
@Julia Quinn:
“I’m currently a senior Healthcare Assistant in a care home.
“Seven residents have died on my floor of 24, the floor upstairs have had a similar toll. I must also mention we have a care worker upstairs that sadly died on Sunday plus a nurse currently in hospital unwell.
“We have no proper PPE, only disposable cloth masks and aprons.”
‘My mother-in-law died a fortnight ago in a care home’
@Tanina Rushton:
“My mother-in-law died a fortnight ago in a care home. The reason given was vascular dementia and old age. She had shallow breathing and a temperature but we were unable to go and see her.”