Over 12,500 people in UK care homes have now died with Covid-19

More than 12,500 people living in British care homes have now died with Covid-19, with the majority dying in their care home, new figures show.

Data from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that just over one in four of all deaths of care home residents in England and Wales between March 2 and May 1 involved Covid-19.

Of 45,899 care home residents who died during this period, 27% (12,526) had Covid-19 mentioned on their death certificate.

(PA Graphics)

The latest data includes all care home residents who died with coronavirus either at their care home or in hospital.

This pushes the overall care home resident death figure 51% higher than the 8,312 reported by the ONS on Tuesday.

For its latest round-up, the ONS found that Covid-19 was the leading cause of death for male care home residents in England and Wales during the period, accounting for 30.3% of deaths.

Covid-19 was the second leading cause of death in female care home residents, after dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, accounting for 23.5% of deaths.

Of all hospital deaths involving Covid-19 during this period, 14.6% were accounted for by care home residents.

Since March, there has been an increase both in deaths involving Covid-19 and those not involving Covid-19 among care home residents, the ONS data also showed.

Some 73,180 deaths occurred among care home residents in England and Wales up to May 1 this year (and registered up to May 9) – 23,136 more than the same period last year.

Some 12,526 of these “excess deaths” mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate.

(PA Graphics)

“For all causes of death, the proportion of deaths among care home residents in hospitals has declined from last year.

“While we would expect a high proportion of these deaths to occur within care homes, and in many cases this will be the right choice for patients, this does raise the question of whether more residents should be treated in hospitals and whether they are being provided with high-quality end of life care.

“This worrying data reveals the extent of the human cost of the crisis, which has already taken many lives and affected thousands of families who have lost loved ones.”

A spokeswoman for the British Department of Health and Social Care said: “Every death from this virus is a tragedy and we are working around the clock to give the social care sector the equipment and support they need to tackle this unprecedented global pandemic.

“This includes continuing to make sure millions of items of PPE are available to care workers, using our increased testing capacity to test care home residents, staff and their families regardless of symptoms and our new £600 million Infection Control Fund to help prevent spread in care homes.”