FROM April 2020 to March this year, 92 people have suffered Covid related deaths in care homes across Bromsgrove.

The Care Quality Comnision (CQC) has published figures showing death notifications involving Covid received from individual care homes between April 10, 2020 and March 31, 2021.

Breme Residential Care Home on Providence Road lost the most residents to Covid according to the CQC figures with 17 people dying between January and March this year.

Chandler Court on Recreation Road and Bluebrooke Residential Home on Stourbridge Road both lost 13 people each between April 2020 and March 2020.

The CQC have said its important to realise 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."

The data covers deaths of residents involving Covid 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.

Kate Terroni, CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care, 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 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."

Councillor Adrian Hardman, cabinet member for adult social care at Worcestershire County Council said: "The past 16 months has been an incredibly hard time for all of us for many different reasons.

“Sadly, a significant number of deaths in care homes across the country occurred in the early stages of the pandemic, prior to extensive testing being carried out locally and nationally in hospitals and homes. We all recognise that many care home residents will have had a health condition that will have also increased their vulnerability to this infection.

“In the past 16 months, we’ve worked extremely hard with care homes across the county to provide support and guidance as the pandemic took hold and presented significant challenges to our social care providers and we continue to do so.

“We’ve given financial support to care homes, both directly and through the distribution of Government grants, to help them to add measures to help keep residents and staff safe and we have provided settings with a constant supply of PPE, fundamental in protecting care workers and the vulnerable individuals they look after.

“I’d like to thank all our care home staff for everything they have done throughout the pandemic to keep residents safe, and also residents, their families and friends for their continued understanding.”

Sarah Clarke-Kuehn, group director, at Sanctuary Care who own Breme Residential Care Home said she is proud of how the team have responded to the pandemic.

“It must always be remembered that at the heart of these statistics are grieving families who have lost loved ones and they are in our thoughts today and every day," said Sarah.

"We are proud of the way our employees at Breme Residential Care Home have responded to the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic, working hard to offer the highest possible standards of care to our residents during the most difficult of times.”