New Data: COVID-19 testing for care home staff

Published in The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Care Home Professional

NEW DATA: Covid-19 testing for care home staff (up to the end of 27 May)

Testing in care homes is “still far too slow”

Today we report that just 9% of care home staff have been tested since 15 May when the government pledged to Covid-19 test "every resident and every member of staff in our elderly care homes in England between now and early June”

This is an even lower proportion of testing than recorded for residents – 10% over the same period

6% of care home staff were tested in the 7 days up to 27 May, matching the test rate for residents

6 out of 10 (62%) of care homes have not had any staff members tested at any stage

15% of care home staff have been tested at any time since the start of the pandemic

4% of staff have been tested more than once at any time since the pandemic started

This disparity in testing suggests care homes are receiving mixed messages about how to carry out testing and would benefit from stronger guidance

If quoting this data please note: This new research comes from The Data Analysis Bureau and is based on anonymised data from Person Centred Software, one of the leading suppliers of near real time management information systems to the care home sector.

This analysis is conducted by The Data Analysis Bureau (T-DAB) based on anonymised data from Person Centred Software. It can be updated daily and include data on testing for carers in the residential setting, and residents. Updates, interactive dashboards, and additional data can be found here.

Simon Briscoe, Director of T-DAB said: “The rate of testing of care home staff has picked up in the last week but is still far too slow to get close to the target set by the government. Testing of just one in ten staff and residents is far below the rate demanded by industry bodies and targeted by government.”

Simon Papworth, co-founder and director of Person Centred Software, said: “Our anonymised data covers thousands of care providers, including private and not-for-profit, from single home providers to large groups. This up to date insight of Covid-19 testing provides a close representation of the current situation in care homes across the country, providing a more representative picture than any individual adult social care provider could provide.”

Eric Topham, CEO of T-DAB said: “This analysis provides unique reporting of the Covid-19 status of staff and residents, at scale. The data provides a granular view of the state of suspected cases, testing, infection, and deaths in care homes. We will be releasing more in-depth, specific analyses to understand patterns in care practices, policy, and Covid-19 outcomes. The insights from the Person Centred Software data will allow government, home owners, carers, residents and their families to see the progress being made with Covid-19 testing in care homes.”

T-DAB is a data science, data analytics, and data engineering innovation agency, based in London’s Shoreditch, specializing in delivering cutting edge data analytics and machine learning driven applications, helping clients to understand their data and discover new insights.  T-DAB collaborate extensively with both private and academic partners. T-DAB is driven to further the use of data and AI for good. 

Person Centred Software is one of the leading suppliers of near real time management information systems to the care home sector. Its digital point of care recording system is used for 50,000 service users across more than 1,800 care providers in the UK. There are an average of 50 care actions recorded per service user per day (2.7 million records a day), which evidence the detail of the care people receive. Person Centred Software’s digital care system, Mobile Care Monitoring, reduces paperwork and gives carers more time to care. Person Centred Software’s philosophy is person-centred; providing benefits to everyone involved in care by delivering exceptional tools.

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