Coronavirus: Care home deaths kept secret ‘to protect providers’ commercial interests’

The number of coronavirus deaths at individual care homes is being kept a secret because of the “commercial interests” of firms running the homes, regulators have said.

Care sector regulators in both England and Scotland have been accused of putting profits before residents and families, after refusing requests for information on Covid-19 death tolls at specific homes.

Both the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in England and the Care Inspectorate in Scotland said revealing the deaths tolls could harm care providers – fearing families could start removing loved ones from homes which have experienced high fatality rates.

The Residents & Relatives Association condemned the decision. “For those looking to move into care, it is surely only right that they should receive information about the Covid status of the home to help inform their decision about where they live,” director Helen Wildbore told The Independent.

The regulators’ wish to keep individual homes’ coronavirus death toll numbers secret emerged following Freedom of Information requests by The Guardian.

The CQC said the release of provider-level mortality figures would “likely prejudice the commercial interests of care providers”. Scotland’s Care Inspectorate said revealing data on deaths at specific homes would “substantially prejudice services commercially”.

Justifying the decision, Debbie Ivanova, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector for adult social care, told The Independent: “On its own the number of deaths at a care home does not provide an assessment of quality or safety.”

She added: “We have recently written to all social care providers to remind them that they have a duty to share appropriate information with families regarding outbreaks and deaths, and to let them know that we will be keeping our current position not to disclose provider-level deaths data under review.”

The CQC fears publishing each care home’s Covid-19 death toll would not provide enough context for families to judge a provider’s response to the pandemic, since the figures wouldn’t take into account underlying health conditions of residents or local outbreaks.

In its statement refusing the FOI request, England’s regulator said such data could be used “in ways which could drive behaviour which is detrimental to the wellbeing of vulnerable people” – citing the possibility family members could remove relatives from homes.

Yet some bereaved relatives believe all families should have all the information they need to make decisions.

Shirin Koohyar, whose father died in April after testing positive for Covid at a care home in west London, said: “Commercial interest when people’s lives are at stake shouldn’t even be a factor.”

The latest weekly figures from the Office for National Statistics show there were 40 deaths related to coronavirus in care homes in England and Wales in the week ending August 14 August – the first rise in four months.

More than 15,000 deaths involving the coronavirus have occurred in in care homes in England and Wales since the start of the pandemic.