NHS confirms four more coronavirus deaths at Northampton General Hospital

Four more coronavirus deaths have today been confirmed at Northampton General Hospital.

NHS England included the information in Tuesday's daily bulletin that two patients died on Sunday (November 22), another on Saturday and one more on Wednesday last week.

All four had either tested positive for Covid-19 within the previous 28 days or had the virus mentioned on a death certificate.

Today's sad news takes the total to 66 deaths among coronavirus patients at the county's two acute NHS Trusts — 42 at Northampton and 24 at Kettering General Hospital — since early October.

The number of Covid-positive patients currently being treated in the two hospitals had risen to 133 by Thursday of last week.

NHS and Public Health officials both expect that number to continue increasing for a while yet.

NGH Chief Operating Officer Deborah Needham revealed the hospital is now being forced to cancel some outpatient clinics with a possible peak in admissions still some days away — although even that may be optimistic as the number of positive tests among the county's over-60s continues to rise sharply.

She said: "We are seeing a steady increasing in number of admissions due to Covid and do not expect that will peak until probably next week.

"Staff are working incredibly hard and as we start to face rise in Covid patients along with expected increase in admissions as we go into winter, things will become more and more difficult.

"We learnt quite a lot about the disease in first wave so in a better place to treat it and winter planning allows us to increase capacity.

"We have been determined so far to continue with our planned care with a focus on cancer and urgent treatments.

“This week however we have had to postpone a number of outpatients clinics, at Northampton General specifically and that may continue or even increase over the next few weeks."

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

A further 159 coronavirus-related deaths in county care homes have also been notified by the Care Quality Commission.