More than 200 people have now died with coronavirus at Bristol hospitals

May 12 2020
More than 200 people have now died with coronavirus at Bristol hospitals

MORE than 200 people have now died with coronavirus at Bristol hospitals.

Figures from the NHS published today show that, as of 5pm yesterday, 109 people had died with COVID-19 in hospitals run by North Bristol NHS Trust, including Southmead, while another 92 had died at those run by University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, which include the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

But Office for National Statistics figures published today, for the week to May 1, showed that during that week more residents died with COVID-19 in the city’s care homes (19) than in hospital (10).

The ONS figures showed that 30 of the 125 Bristol residents who died that week – 24% – had COVID-19.

In neighbouring South Gloucestershire, coronavirus was listed as a cause of death for 21 out of the 82 people who died in the same week (26%).

The number of people who died with coronavirus in Bristol fell during the week to May 1, from 43 in the previous week to 30. The weekly number for South Gloucestershire rose by 3.

In total 189 Bristol residents and 117 from South Gloucestershire had died with coronavirus in the year to May 1.

Figures from the Care Quality Commission show that between May 2 and last Friday, 12 Bristol care home residents died with COVID-19 either confirmed or suspected. The figure is 10 lower than the 22 reported the previous week.

CQC figures differ from those supplied by the ONS because they include cases where the virus was not confirmed, so may not have been mentioned on the death certificate used to confirm causes of death by the ONS.

The CQC figures show that, between April 10 and May 8, 97 people in Bristol care homes and 34 in South Gloucestershire died with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

Nationally, 226,463 laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus had been confirmed by 4pm today, with 32,692 COVID-19 associated deaths reported of people who had the virus confirmed in a laboratory test.

There are 672 confirmed cases in Bristol (145 per 100,000 people) and 388 in South Gloucestershire (137 per 100,000 people).

The number of deaths nationally which mentioned COVID-19 in the week to May 1 was 6,035 – 33.6% of the total of 17,953 deaths recorded.

This was a decrease for the second week running in the total number of deaths but still 8,012 more than the average number of deaths for the same week over the past five years.

And the ONS says that, in the year to May 1 the overall number of deaths in the UK, at 247,251, was 41,627 more than the five-year average.

The difference between this total and the official total for confirmed COVID-19 deaths is believed to be due both to people having died of the virus without it being confirmed by a test and people having died from other causes, perhaps having not sought treatment because of the crisis.

Addressing the deaths in care homes, Local Government Association Community Wellbeing Board chair Ian Hudspeth said: “Every death from this virus is a tragedy and each of these figures represents another shocking and terrible loss of a family member and friend. No one in care should have to suffer from this dreadful disease.

Social care is the front line in the fight against coronavirus and while it is encouraging that we have seen a week-on-week fall in care home fatalities from COVID-19, we need to continue doing all we can to shield our most elderly and vulnerable, including those receiving care in their own homes.

Councils want to play their full part in the national effort to defeat this disease, but need help and information to understand where the outbreaks are happening and be able to act quickly to contain them. The Government needs to share this vital and up-to-date data with councils, as part of any contact tracing programme.

It is also crucial the Government’s online PPE ordering system needs to be fully operational as soon as possible, so that councils and care providers can directly request that critical protective equipment gets to the front line, where it is desperately needed.”