THE number of people in hospital in Herefordshire with coronavirus last month has been revealed in new figures.

NHS England data shows one person with Covid-19 were admitted to the Wye Valley NHS Trust in September, with the same number admitted in July and August.

This is significantly lower than 22 admissions between March 19 and March 31, 34 in April, 35 in May and 23 in June.

In total, between March 19 and September 30, 121 patients were admitted to the Wye Valley NHS Trust with Covid-19.

NHS England guidance on the Covid-19 hospital activity statistics says: "The collections were activated at short notice and the content of the collections has evolved as the incident has developed.

"The data collected is classified as management information. It has been collected on a daily basis with a tight turn round time.

"No revisions have been made to the dataset, where known errors have come to light trusts have made the appropriate correction in the following day's data.

"Any analysis of the data should be undertaken with this in mind."

It adds the data is collected on a daily basis, and this publication is updated monthly.

Mechanical ventilation beds at the trust, which are used by seriously ill coronavirus patients, were empty between July 15 and September 23.

But on September 24, one of these beds was occupied by a coronavirus patient. One bed was occupied until September 30, which is when the figures end. October will be covered in the next release of the data in November.

The data which shows when these beds were occupied covers from April 1 to September 30. April 5 was the day when most mechanical ventilation beds were taken, with 10 in use.

The number of beds taken by patients with coronavirus averaged just one in September, the same as August. This was down from two in July and 14 in June.

In April, the number of coronavirus patients at the Wye Valley NHS Trust averaged at 30, which went down to 28 during May.

The most number of beds taken by patients with coronavirus at the Wye Valley NHS Trust in September was between September 25 and 28 when three beds were in use.

There were no patients in Herefordshire hospitals with coronavirus between September 1 and 20.

By the end of the month, the number had fallen to two.

The graph below shows the number of coronavirus patients admitted, the average number of beds taken, and the average number on mechanical ventilators each month.

Made with Flourish

Separate data from NHS England shows the most recent coronavirus-related death at the trust happened on October 3. It was the first coronavirus death in a Herefordshire hospital since July 15.

The data only shows deaths where the the patient had tested positive for Covid-19.

The figures, which cover up to 4pm on Monday (October 13), show a total of 58 people had died at the trust after a positive Covid-19 test result.