Care home deaths involving Covid-19 across north Cumbria have increased since last year, figures show.

According to data published by the Care Quality Commission, there were 140 care home death notifications involving Covid-19 across north Cumbria between January and March 2021, compared to 104 between April and June 2020.

However, care home deaths involving Covid-19 decreased across the whole North West region from 3,081 between April and June 2020, to 1,398 between January and March 2021.

The data covers deaths of residents involving COVID-19 under the care of the provider as notified to CQC, regardless of where the virus was contracted or where the death occurred, including in the care home, in hospital, in an ambulance or in any other setting.

Cumbria County Council cabinet member for Health and Care Services, Cllr Patricia Bell, said: "The pandemic has been exceptionally difficult for care homes in Cumbria and, alongside the county’s two NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups, we have worked hard to ensure they had the support they needed around infection prevention and control, testing, PPE and access to vaccination, and we continue to do so.

"Sadly despite this, a significant number of care home residents have died as a result of COVID-19, as has been the case across the country.

"This has obviously been incredibly distressing for families, but also for staff in care homes who have been under immense pressure for so long now."

"Considering the data published today, it is important to recognise that the number of deaths in a care home alone does not provide an accurate assessment of quality or safety.

"Across Cumbria 92 per cent of care homes are rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, including all of the homes managed by the county council and currently rated.

"There are a total of 110 care homes in the county, 18 of them managed by the county council.”

CQC’s Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, Kate Terroni, said: “In considering this data it is important to remember that every number represents a life lost – and families, friends and those who cared for them who are having to face the sadness and consequences of their death.

“We are grateful for the time that families who lost their loved ones during the pandemic have spent meeting with us and the personal experiences they have shared. These discussions have helped us shape our thinking around the highly sensitive issue of publishing information on the numbers of death notifications involving COVID-19 received from individual care homes.

“We have a duty to be transparent and to act in the public interest, and we made a commitment to publish data at this level, but only once we felt able to do so as accurately and safely as possible given the complexity and sensitivity of the data.

“In doing so, we aim to provide a more comprehensive picture of the impact of COVID-19 on care homes, the people living in them and their families.

“It is important to be clear, however, that although this data relates to deaths of people who were care home residents, many of them did not die in or contract COVID-19 in a care home.

“As we publish this data, we ask for consideration and respect to be shown to people living in care homes, to families who have been affected, and to the staff who have done everything they could, in incredibly difficult circumstances, to look after those in their care.”

CQC conducted 5,577 inspections of residential adult social care providers between 10 April 2020 and 31 March 2021.

The inclusion of a death in the published figures as being involved with COVID-19 is based on the statement of the care home provider, which may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result or be reflected in the death certification.

It is important to note that death notifications do not in themselves indicate poor quality care, particularly given the potential influence of variable factors, including rates of local community transmission, size of the care home, and the age and health and care needs of the people living there.

Moreover, many notifications relate to the deaths of care home residents which occurred in other care settings.