We have now confirmed a date for publication of data showing notifications received from individual care homes relating to deaths of people with COVID-19 between 10 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. This is in addition to the data we already publish on a weekly basis with ONS on the total number of care home residents who have died with COVID-19.
We made a commitment to publish data on location level death notifications as soon as we were able to do so accurately and safely. We can now confirm that we are working towards bringing this data to our Public Board meeting on 21 July 2021, with publication on the CQC website later the same day.
This date has been chosen primarily because our analysts, and colleagues from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), believe that it will allow enough time to complete the additional quality assurance processes required for publication. Providers will be given advance sight of the information they have previously provided to us to ensure they have had the right conversations with people in their care and their loved ones. It will also give our Board the opportunity to have a full public discussion about this data.
The data will let people see the number of death notifications relating to COVID-19 we have received from every care home location in England over the course of the pandemic, as well as how many death notifications we have received in a local authority area.
Throughout the pandemic, we have encouraged care providers to be transparent with people in their care and their loved ones, and we know that most providers have done all they can to ensure that information about the circumstance of peoples’ death is shared appropriately.
The only factor that would prevent publication on 21 July is if an issue with data quality emerges during the quality assurance process. While we currently have no reason to believe this might be the case, we will delay publication if we have any concerns about the accuracy of the data. We are acutely aware that every single number represents an individual life lost to COVID-19 and we have a responsibility to represent these figures - and these lives - as accurately as possible.