Northamptonshire authorities refuse to give details on Coronavirus scale

Northamptonshire’s health and local authority bosses are refusing to give a clear picture of what is happening with the coronavirus crisis.

The number of Covid-19 admissions to the county’s two hospitals, the number of people who make a recovery and the number of outbreaks in Northamptonshire care homes appears to be a closely guarded secret at the moment.

All that is being made publicly available is the numbers of those who are tragically losing their lives in hospital – with the number currently standing at 70 deaths in Kettering since the pandemic began and 110 in Northampton.

Northants journalists have regularly asked the questions over the past few weeks to Northamptonshire County Council, health bosses and the urgent response teams leading communications for more exact details of who is being affected, why and where, but the questions are being rebuffed.

The reason so far given for not providing the Covid-19 hospital admissions and discharges is because the unprecedented situation has meant not all media requests can be responded to.

One media officer from the urgent response communications team also said there are guidelines about what information can be made public.

Asked yesterday (April 21) about reports from the community about an outbreak at one of its own run homes in Northampton, the county council refused to give details.

A spokesperson said: “In line with guidance from Public Health England we are unable to release specific figures in relation to those in care homes who have been tested, confirmed positive or who have sadly died. This is because sharing this information would risk identifying individuals.

“We are monitoring and recording all symptomatic and confirmed cases of Covid-19 within the care sector and working closely with care homes to ensure they are fully supported during this time. This includes ensuring appropriate PPE is available to them, helping to keep both staff and customers safe.”

One national care home company that runs a home in Kettering, and is understood to have a carer in hospital with the virus, has said it has a blanket ‘no comment’ answer to questions about coronavirus because it ‘does not want to feed the media frenzy’.

So as it stands it is very unclear how many outbreaks there have been at care homes in the county.

The government has faced criticism for not including the number of deaths of elderly people in care homes in its national death tally, which is now at 17,408.

However that figure is understood to be much higher and the National Care Forum has produced a report which estimates the number of care home residents who have died of Covid 19 to be between 7,500 and 4,000.

Labour’s Cllr Danielle Stone, who is the shadow cabinet member for adult social care in Northamptonshire, said she is very worried about the lack of transparency.

She said: “I think the local authorities are following a template set out by Government. But I am really concerned for the care workers. They have been doing an incredible job, but they are being underpaid and over worked. I think it is going to be a national scandal.

“I am of also very worried about the elderly in our community. I am sure they are being encouraged to stay in their care homes even when they are ill. There is a lot of ambiguity about how some may have died, because there is no testing we don’t know the true picture.”

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