Four more deaths among patients who tested positive for Covid-19 at Northampton General Hospital

NHS England today confirmed four more patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 have died within the last week at Northampton General Hospital.

Figures revealed in a daily bulletin showed three died at the Cliftonville site on Saturday (October 17) and one other on Monday. That takes the total to seven at NGH since cases in the county began rising last month.

NHS analysts collate information on patients who have died in hospitals in England and either tested positive for Covid-19 or where no positive test result was received but Covid-19 is mentioned on a death certificate.

The latest deaths were among 146 confirmed by NHS England in hospitals in the last five days.

Previous bulletins had showed three recent deaths at the hospital — all on Tuesday October 13.

Delays in reporting and registration can mean delays of up to four days or even more in deaths being added to the official NHS England tally.

Today's sad news follows the announcement of two deaths among Covid-19 patients at neighbouring Kettering General Hospital, within the last 2½ weeks.

Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning group boss, Toby Sanders, warned earlier today that an increase in number of patients being treated for the virus in hospital is a "cause for concern."

He said: “As of Wednesday, we had 38 patients across our two hospitals that were Covid positive and a number of other query Covid patients.

“That number sounds small and as a relative proportion of our hospital bed base it remains thankfully still relatively small.

"But the rate at which that has been increasing over recent weeks is in direct response to the numbers of cases in the community doubling and trebling and that is a cause for concern from an NHS perspective."

Covid-19 was linked to 311 deaths in Northampton and 220 in Kettering between March and August.

A further 151 deaths in county care homes have been connected with Covid-19 by the Care Quality Commission, although the most recent was on August 17.

Figures released yesterday showed Northamptonshire saw biggest rise in new Covid-19 cases in a single 24-hour period with 178 positive tests reported

The rate of infection in the county is now 120.25 per 100,000 per population per week with Northampton, Wellingborough, Kettering and South Northants all seeing rates over 100

Northampton has seen 345 new cases in the last week, with a further 115 each in both Wellingborough and Kettering.