Yorkshire care home coronavirus deaths at 10 per cent of CQC's total for England

Statistics released today show that 6,391 residents died in care homes with Covid-19 between April 10 and May 1 this year - and 659 of these were in Yorkshire (broken down by area below).

Sheffield reported the joint seventh highest number of such deaths by local authority across England, with 123 said to have died with the disease in care homes across the South Yorkshire city during that time period, matched with Essex.

However, all of the other authorities which have reported more deaths relate not to cities, but counties in the south, such as Kent.

It comes after the Yorkshire Post reported yesterday how bosses at a care home in Beeston, in south Leeds, said it is doing “everything it can” to keep its residents safe after 17 people died after having symptoms of coronavirus.

Here are the CQC's reported numbers for coronavirus-related care home deaths by local authority across Yorkshire in full:

Barnsley - 28

Bradford - 47

Calderdale - 25

Doncaster - 11

East Riding of Yorkshire - 35

Hull - 25

Kirklees - 47

Leeds - 110

North Yorkshire - 92

Rotherham - 54

Sheffield - 123

Wakefield - 40

York - 22

The CQC data is provisional as it compiles numbers based on care homes' reporting rather than where Covid-19 is mentioned anywhere on a death certificate, which is the method used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which also released new figures today.

According to the ONS, care home deaths linked to coronavirus have increased by more than 2,500 in the space of a week.

There were 5,890 coronavirus-related care home deaths registered up to April 24 in England and Wales, up from just over 3,000 the week before, the organisation said.

Of deaths involving coronavirus up to that point, 19,643 (71.8 per cent) took place in hospitals and 7,713 were elsewhere - 5,890 in care homes and 1,306 in private homes.

But overall, deaths from all causes registered in England and Wales fell for the first time since March 20, the ONS figures also showed.

In the week ending April 24, there were 21,997 deaths, down by 354 from the week ending April 17.

Nick Stripe, head of health analysis at the ONS, told the BBC it was "reassuring" to see the overall number of deaths has slightly dropped.

He said: "We would kind of expect to see that impact of the lockdown now, so it's reassuring to see that the number of deaths have slightly dropped from that very high peak."

But he cautioned that the number of excess deaths in the week ending April 24 is still the second highest since records began in 1993.

Of the total deaths from all causes in the week up to April 24, 37.4 per cent (8,237) mentioned "novel coronavirus (Covid-19)"

There were 11,539 more deaths than the five-year average of 10,458, just over 70 per cent of which involved Covid-19.

Over the last five weeks where data has been recorded, he calculated there have been around 42,000 deaths above average in the UK.

Mr Stripe said that hospitals are still seeing about 75 per cent more deaths than usual at this time of year but the situation in care homes is "more stark".

He continued: "So, almost four times more deaths than we would expect to see at this time of year were registered in that last week, about 280 per cent more deaths registered in care homes above that five-year average, and that number is going up.

"And 35 per cent of those mentioned Covid on the death certificate."

The number of registered deaths involving Covid-19 occurring in hospitals fell from 6,107 in the week ending April 17 to 4,841 in the week ending April 24 - a decrease of 21 per cent.

Sheffield Council and Leeds City Council have both been approached for comment.