Quarter of coronavirus deaths in Scotland occurred in care homes

One quarter of all COVID-19 deaths in Scotland are happening in care homes, with 40 per cent of Scotland’s care homes having reported cases of coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak, new figures reveal.

Weekly death statistics, released today by National Records of Scotland (NRS), showed that as of 12 April there had been 962 deaths registered in Scotland where COVID-19 was mentioned in the death certificate.

The statistics revealed that between 6 April and 12 April, 608 deaths relating to COVID-19 had been registered, up from 282 deaths in the previous week, 30 March to 5 April.

“Registered deaths involving COVID-19 from 6th April to 12th April accounted for 31 per cent of all deaths registered in that week,” NRS said on its website.

For the first time the figures also showed where COVID-19 related deaths occurred, with 25 per cent of deaths occurring in Scottish care homes, 62 per cent in hospitals and 13 per cent were at home or in non-institutional settings.

Almost 70 per cent of all registered deaths involving COVID-19 to date were people aged 75 or over. The highest number of registered deaths were people living in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, with 193 deaths.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon discussed the statistics in her daily briefing on Wednesday, confirming that Care Inspectorate figures to be published daily from today showed 433 care homes in Scotland had recorded cases of coronavirus, “that’s roughly 40 per cent of all care homes in Scotland,” she said.

She said there had been 237 coronavirus-related deaths in care homes.

“The residents of care homes matter every bit as much to us as those in the community. It's more important given their vulnerability that we do all we can to prevent infection and to control it,” she said.

The FM was grilled on the capacity of testing in care homes, and she confirmed that work was underway to test all patients in care homes who were showing symptoms of COVID-19.

However, she stressed that guidance to care homes was “very clear”, with isolation and social distancing crucial in managing and preventing infection. Sturgeon said the best use of testing in care homes was to establish whether the virus was in a care home and then manage the infection with control measures.

Responding to the statistics, Scottish Care chief executive Donald Macaskill tweeted: 

Sturgeon said the daily figures, as of 9am 15 April, showed that there were 6,748 positive cases of the virus in Scotland, and 699 patients who tested positive had died, an increase of 84 from yesterday.

The daily figures only count laboratory confirmations of coronavirus, whereas the NRS weekly figures “include deaths presumed to be linked to the virus, both as a suspected cause and contributory factor” and will always be larger than the daily figures, Sturgeon said.

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