Deaths at home: More than 26,000 extra this year, ONS finds

More men than normal are dying at home from heart disease in England and Wales and more women are dying from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, figures show.

More than 26,000 extra deaths occurred in private homes this year, an analysis by the Office for National Statistics found.

In contrast, deaths in hospitals from these causes have been lower than usual.

The Covid epidemic may have led to fewer people being treated in hospital.

Or it may be that people in older age groups, who make up the majority of these deaths, may be choosing to stay at home - but the underlying reasons for the figures are still not clear.

Between March and September 2020, there were 24,387 more deaths in England than expected in private homes, and 1,644 in Wales - the large majority did not involve Covid-19.

Of these, an extra 1,705 men died from heart disease in their own homes in England compared with the average number over the previous five years.

This is 25% more than normal, and in Wales there was a similar rise - of 22.7%.

Over the same period, deaths in hospitals from heart disease went down by about a quarter in England and Wales.

During the pandemic, around 1,400 more women than usual died at home from dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

While deaths from these conditions also increased in care homes, hospital deaths from dementia decreased by 40% in England and 25% in Wales.

The ONS figures show that deaths in private homes have been above the five-year average since the peak of the pandemic in early April, while deaths in hospitals have been lower than normal since the start of June.

Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that equated to an extra 100 people dying at home every day.

"Usually around 300 people die each day in their homes in England and Wales," he commented.

"The latest ONS analysis confirms that even after the peak of the epidemic this has stayed at around 400 a day and shows no sign of declining. That's one-third extra, very few of which are from Covid."

He suggested these deaths would normally have occurred in hospital.

"People have either been reluctant to go, discouraged from attending, or the services have been disrupted," Prof Spiegelhalter added.

"It is unclear how many of these lives could have been extended had they gone to hospital, for example among the 450 extra deaths from cardiac arrhythmias."