Neglect was one of biggest killers in care homes during pandemic, report finds

The pandemic has disproportionately affected people living in care homes, who accounted for an estimated 30% of all deaths from covid-19 across 25 countries despite making up only 1% of the world’s population, a report has estimated.

The analysis was carried out by Collateral Global, a research group that says it is dedicated to reporting on the effects of governments’ mandatory COVID-19 mitigation measures. The report said the pandemic had exacerbated long running problems in the care sector, such as chronic underfunding, poor structural organisation, staff undertraining, underskilling, and underequipping, and a “lack of humanity in dealing with the most vulnerable members of society.”

“Neglect, thirst, and hunger were—and possibly still are—the biggest killers,” the group said. They also said that care home residents faced barriers in access to emergency treatments during the pandemic.

The study authors suggested that undiagnosed COVID-19, poor testing, and inadequate staffing and infection control were the likely factors contributing to the excess deaths in care homes.

Martin Green, chief executive officer of Care England, said, “Adult social care and the NHS are two sides of the same coin and need to be treated as such. The government shouldn’t have placed such a myopic focus on the NHS without due consideration for social care too.”

He said that he was “phenomenally” proud of the care workforce and wanted to ensure that they were recognised as professionals with proper career pathways and commensurate funding.

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Source: The BMJ, 22 December 2021