“What does national and local data reveal about how the coronavirus has impacted on our city, its residents, and services?”

What does this data say about the impacts for our city and its residents?

• What are transmission rates like in in our city?
• How many people have sadly died, directly or indirectly, from the virus?
• Have certain areas of the city been more affected than others?
• Which groups have been adversely affected, if any?
• And what has been the impact on our local hospitals and social care services?

In an attempt to answer these questions, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove has examined a range of published data examining the wider health and societal impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19). You can download the report at the bottom of the page. 

The data described in this report, accurate as at the date of writing (July 2020), indicates:

Confirmed cases   

• There have been relatively low numbers of confirmed cases – 779 as of 15th July out of a population of 290,885 – less than 3%.
• But these are only cases which have been confirmed by a test. 
• We have not seen or identified data about how many additional suspected cases there might be. But we can assume the real number is higher.

Death rates

• As at the 3 July, the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 stood at 158. But these are only cases where the virus was mentioned on the death certificate.
• Once again, we have not identified any data showing how many more cases might be linked to the virus but where this was not recorded. 
• What is clear, is that COVID-19 raised the death rate above the average seen in the city between 2014-2018 in 11 of 15 weeks reported upon.

Hospitals

• As at 15 July, 147 deaths were registered of patients who had sadly died in hospitals within the Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust in England.
• These are patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. It is again unclear how many additional unconfirmed deaths linked to COVID-19 there have been.
• Separate data has predicted where residents of the city are at highest risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19. The data suggests areas such as Saltdean, Woodingdean, Mile Oak, Westdene, and Hove seafront.

Care homes 

• As at 9 July, 44 care homes in Brighton and Hove had reported a suspected or confirmed outbreak of COVID-19 to Public Health England. 
• There are 92 care homes in our city – so 48% of care homes. However, there is no indication of whether the reported outbreaks were confirmed, are still active or have been resolved.
• Published government data may not reveal the true picture about care homes either. We understand that the data includes information from all types of domiciliary care and not just care homes.
• In addition, care homes which report a suspected COVID-19 breakout but where test results subsequently prove to be negative for COVID-19 might not be removed from these statistics. These factors may lead to over reporting.

Mental Health

• Healthwatch has not identified comprehensive government data showing the impacts of COVID-19 on the mental health of individuals, or on related services. 
• Data shared with us by the Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust on numbers accessing mental health services show that face to face contact dropped by 65% compared with expected levels.
• 13,000 people in Sussex could also experience an increase in mental health problems related to economic downturn.

NB Our report focusses on data pertinent to Brighton and Hove but we have also included some national and regional data although this is limited. Healthwatch has not produced any of the data shown in this report and we identified most of the data on the UK government, NHS, and Office for National Statistics websites.