diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d6be5d1..24e7cff 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
+## Unreleased
+### Changed
+- Properly handle database connection errors
+
 ### [0.7.0] - 2018-11-07
 ## Added
 - Ability to configure PostgreSQL database port with DATABASE_PORT environment variable (defaults to 5432)
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index a010a37..c6b7bed 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -72,7 +72,6 @@ The item id is the *internal* id for an item. You can get these from the standar
 
 - Better logging
 - Tests
-- Check if database exists (try/except)
 - Version API
 - Use JSON in PostgreSQL
 - Switch to [Python 3.6+ f-string syntax](https://realpython.com/python-f-strings/)
diff --git a/dspace_statistics_api/database.py b/dspace_statistics_api/database.py
index d240757..cb8640e 100644
--- a/dspace_statistics_api/database.py
+++ b/dspace_statistics_api/database.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ from .config import DATABASE_USER
 from .config import DATABASE_PASS
 from .config import DATABASE_HOST
 from .config import DATABASE_PORT
+import falcon
 import psycopg2
 import psycopg2.extras
 
@@ -14,7 +15,13 @@ class DatabaseManager():
         self._connection_uri = 'dbname={} user={} password={} host={} port={}'.format(DATABASE_NAME, DATABASE_USER, DATABASE_PASS, DATABASE_HOST, DATABASE_PORT)
 
     def __enter__(self):
-        self._connection = psycopg2.connect(self._connection_uri, cursor_factory=psycopg2.extras.DictCursor)
+        try:
+            self._connection = psycopg2.connect(self._connection_uri, cursor_factory=psycopg2.extras.DictCursor)
+        except psycopg2.OperationalError:
+            title = '500 Internal Server Error'
+            description = 'Could not connect to database'
+            raise falcon.HTTPInternalServerError(title, description)
+
         return self._connection
 
     def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback):