First Minister says care home residents 'matter every bit as much'
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Nicola Sturgeon has emphasised that care homes residents "matter every bit as much" as hospital patients or people in the wider community.
The First Minister was speaking today after it was confirmed that one in four Covid-19 deaths are of elderly people in care.
The new National Records of Scotland (NRS) numbers revealed that there had been 962 deaths in Scotland where Covid-19 was confirmed or suspected across the country, with 237 of those occurring in care homes.
The figures provide a more detailed breakdown of those who have succumbed to the virus and also in what location, with the majority of 596 being in hospital while a further 129 died at home or elsewhere.
The key findings of the latest NRS figures are:
- Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate of more than 30 per cent of death certificates, up 326 from the previous week
- A quarter of Covid-19 deaths registered to date were in care homes, 62 per cent were in hospitals and 13 per cent at home or non-institutional settings
- Almost 70 per cent of all deaths involving Covid-19 to date were of people aged 75 or over
The worrying levels of deaths among the elderly in care homes or elsewhere led the First Minister to underline that the Scottish Government was taking the numbers very seriously.
Ms Sturgeon said: “We know that older people are more at risk of becoming seriously unwell or dying from this virus.
“Although I should stress people of all ages are at risk, we know that care homes can be places that are more susceptible to infection outbreaks. Figures published by the Scottish Government show that 433 care homes have so far recorded incidents of coronavirus since this epidemic began.
“So I want to stress again how hard we will continue to work with care home providers, local health protection teams and the Care Inspectorate to ensure that care home staff and residents have the support and equipment that they need.
“I also want to make it very clear – this shouldn’t need to be said, but I want to say it anyway – that the residents of care homes matter every bit as much to us as people in the community or in hospital.
“It is just as important in care homes as it is anywhere else. In fact, I would say it's more important given their vulnerability and susceptibility to infection spreading that we do all we can to prevent infection and also to control it when there is infection in a care home.”
However, despite some concerning figures, there was some reason for “cautious optimism”, according to Ms Sturgeon, based on the hospital and intensive care figures that have come directly from health boards.
She said: “As at 9am, I can report that there have been 6748 positive cases confirmed, that’s an increase of 390 from the figures reported yesterday.
“A total of 1748 patients are currently in hospital with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 that is a decrease of 53 from yesterday’s figures and the total of 195 people, as of last night, were in intensive care with confirmed or suspected cases of the virus and that is a decrease one on yesterday's figures.
“As I said yesterday, these hospital and intensive care figures do give us cause for some very cautious optimism at this stage but I want to caution again that it is still too early for us to be definitive about that.
“So my caution is not against cautious optimism but against reading too much into these figures at this point, not least because in the last 24 hours I'm afraid that 84 deaths have been registered of patients who had been confirmed as having Covid-19.”
