COVID-19: Care Homes in England – Update

May 8, 2020

Carl  Heneghan, Jason Oke

Data from care homes shows that outbreaks are increasing (figure 1) and as are admissions to hospital from care homes (figure 2).

Hospital admissions 

NHS England Covid 19 Activity 

Shows the number of patients admitted in the previous 24 hours with COVID-19 or diagnosed with COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours where admitted from Care Homes

PHE’s National surveillance reports

PHE reports flu and Covid

Information on acute respiratory infection (ARI) incidents are based on situations reported to PHE Health Protection Teams (HPTs). These include:

• ‘Confirmed outbreaks of acute respiratory infections ie two or more laboratory confirmed cases (COVID-19, influenza or other respiratory pathogen) linked to a particular setting.’
• Situations where an outbreak is suspected. All suspected outbreaks are further investigated by the HPT in liaison with local partners and a significant proportion do not meet the criteria of a confirmed outbreak. For example if suspected cases test negative for COVID19 or other respiratory pathogens, or cases are subsequently found not to have direct links to the setting. Since Pillar 2 testing became open to everyone during week 21 more incidents of mild disease have been detected in settings with healthy young populations.’

Last updated 2nd October: Covid surveillance reports

Last updated 27 August 2020: COVID-19: number of outbreaks in care homes – management information

Latest Care home activity: NHS England Covid 19 Activity 

Carl Heneghan is Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and Director of Studies for the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme. (Full bio and disclosure statement here)

Jason Oke is a Senior Statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and Module Coordinator for Statistical Computing with R and Stata (EBHC Med Stats), and Introduction to Statistics for Health Care Research (EBHC), as part of the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme.

Disclaimer: the article has not been peer-reviewed; it should not replace individual clinical judgement, and the sources cited should be checked. The views expressed in this commentary represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the host institution, the NHS, the NIHR, or the Department of Health and Social Care.